SNR #120: Kevin Folta, PhD - An Evidence-Based View of Genetically Modified Foods

Sigma Nutrition Radio

Danny Lennon

Sigma, Dietetics, Evidencebased, Nutrition, Training, Health & Fitness, Science, Diet, Fitness, Evidence, Bodybuilding, Health

4.8 • 626 Ratings

🗓️ 10 May 2016

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Episode 120: Kevin Folta PhD, is a horticulture professor at the University of Florida. Dr. Folta is passionate about spreading the word of good science, especially on misunderstood topics like genetic modification.

Kevin Folta is a professor and chairman of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida. Dr. Folta received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago in molecular biology in 1998.

Within his lab he researches photomorphogenesis in plants and compounds responsible for flavor in strawberries. Folta's laboratory has two primary research areas: controlling plant traits using light, and using genomics to identify molecular markers for key fruit-plant traits.

Folta has been active as a science communicator since 2002, especially relating to biotechnology and genetic engineering. Folta has formal training in communication and has been recognized for his skill by scholarly institutions. He uses his experience to provide workshops to teach scientists and farmers how to communicate science effectively. Just recently, Dr. Folta won the 2016 Borlaug CAST Communication Award.

Folta operates the Talking Biotech podcast which is billed as "A science-based assessment of new technology and the future of food",[30] in which he interviews agriculture scientists and experts in the fields of science and communication to discuss the genetic improvement of plants, animals, and microbes and other issues in biotechnology.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You can take something that has high allergenicity like peanuts,
0:11.0	soy, wheat, and you can engineer out the proteins that lead to that allergenity.
0:18.0	This is the new surgical technique that allows scientists to change very precisely individual
0:26.6	letters in the DNA of the genome.
0:30.6	You can change a specific, one specific base pair change or a small base pair set of changes
0:36.6	that you can essentially edit that sequence,
0:41.3	which is causing the allergenicity, and make very small tweaks to make it no longer trigger
0:47.3	an immune response. Hello and welcome to Sigma Nutrition Radio, the podcast that brings you evidence-based discussions
1:11.9	with the world's leading researchers in fields related to nutrition and health. I am your host,
1:18.6	Danny Lennon, and you are listening to Episode 120. And today we're going to tackle an issue that
1:26.1	carries a lot of controversy with it when it's
1:29.1	brought up in nutrition discussions, and that's around genetically modified foods or genetic
1:33.8	engineering, how that relates to food produce.
1:37.0	Now, there's no shortage of places online that you can find people talking about this
1:41.9	issue, often with quite a lot of emotion. And certainly
1:46.2	it's quite a loaded topic. You hear about how evil Monsanto is and these other companies
1:51.3	and how they're conspiring to make billions at the expense of all our health. And certainly,
1:56.9	I think we can't be naive and think that big corporations are out there to look after our health.
2:03.2	And I think it's pretty clear.
2:05.0	Certain companies, people typically think of Monsanto.
2:08.6	Many of those may get up to some questionable stuff.
2:11.9	But what I think often that gets lost when you go down that rabbit hole is that it's easy to forget that
	...

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