Add or Edit a Food Ingredient/Additive Danny's Story Additives Safety Biotechnology Product Labeling Kosher Certification   BIOTECHNOLOGY: AN ONGOING REVOLUTION IN THE FOOD PROCESSING INDUSTRY   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Over the past l5 years, advances in biotechnology, specifically in fermentation and genetic engineering techniques, have spurred enormous changes in food processing technology. Food production is increasingly the domain of specialized food technologists, who rely on an astonishingly large number of ingredients and additives to devise new products for increasingly demanding consumers. For example, as noted by Judith Leff, a food science specialist: "On a cake's ingredient label, flavors typically come among the last of a long list of ingredients. Those flavors themselves, may contain as many as l00 to l50 different chemicals." These advances create concerns about our ability to identify the source of food ingredients and to determine what impact the advances should have upon food labeling. The FDA and Kashrut supervising agencies will be pressed to meet these challenges. Biotechnology, as a defined scientific term, did not appear in the literature much before the l980's. Biotechnology has been defined rather simply by food scientist Charles Manley as a "high-tech term for the age old process of fermentation." Elegantly and more comprehensively, biotechnology has been defined by two other leading food science specialists at Cornell University, Joe and Carrie Regenstein, as "the laboratory manipulation of biological organisms in the production of materials to be used by humans." The significance of biotechnology for the consumer lies in the fact that the sourcing of many common food ingredients and flavors, both natural and artificially processed, derives increasingly from biotechnological techniques. The two having the most significant impact on food ingredients and flavor components production are genetic engineering and fermentation.   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   GENETIC ENGINEERING   A genetically engineered food has one or more genes that have been added. Genes or, more accurately nucleotides, are the basic units that make up the strands of dioxyribonucleic acid ("DNA") carrying the genetic, hereditary code for all living things. A good early example of a genetically engineered food is Calgene's flavr-Savr tomato. As a result of genetic engineering, it stays firm up to a week longer than the traditional fruit, and also can be vine ripened. The altered tomato addresses the age-old problems of the need to get the product to the market before spoilage and the related need to harvest before full ripening. A biotech company, Calgene (Davis, CA) learned that the softening process, or spoilage, of tomatoes occurs as a result of the natural production of ethylene gas and the enzyme polyturonase. Calgene scientists discovered that through reverse gene coding of the enzyme (literally putting the coding for the enzyme backwards in the gene), the production of both the ethylene gas and the polyturonase enzyme are thereby suppressed. Some professionals have expressed concern about the FDA's policy that a genetically engineered food product need not be labeled as such unless it is noticeably different than the unaltered food product." It has been asserted that many people are allergic to or intolerant of particular foods and that genetic engineering inadvertently may transfer allergenicity from one food to another.   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   FERMENTATION   In the mid-seventies, consumers began demanding more "natural" foods, perhaps as a consequence of heightened public concern about the environment. In adapting to these consumer demands, manufacturers began to use advanced fermentation technologies to produce natural products. Generally, natural fermentation products include microorganisms, enzymes and genetically engineered ingredients. For manufacturers, a particularly important aspect of the production of "natural products" in response to consumer demand has been the formulation and use of "natural flavorings". The FDA defines this term in the context of the flavoring constituents of a natural plant or animal that are produced by various extraction techniques, heating or enzymolysis (production of enzymes). A natural flavoring can be produced in only certain restricted ways: Extracted directly form a plant or animal material by any of various physical ways such as through the use of solvents Produced by microbiological fermentation which is the use of microorganisms introduced into a food and grown in commercially controlled environments Produced by enzyme reaction Produced by the use of any food preparation technique commonly used by a typical consumer such a cooking, or adding vinegar and so on." In addition, a natural flavor can only be made from materials that are themselves natural. In other words, a natural flavor cannot be made from any chemically modified ingredient (any treatment specified above), nor can it be made from a material derived from a petrochemical source such as a food coloring like Blue No.1. Certain fermentation processes are quite technologically advanced, but the basic process is ancient. Traditionally fermentation has been used to make alcoholic beverages, bread, and dairy products such as yogurt. Fermentation also produces the distinctive tastes in cheeses such as cheddar and camembert. While used for centuries, however, the fermentation process itself was not well understood until the later half of the 19 century. In 1860, Louis Pasteur's unraveling of the fermentation process permitted him to overcome the persistent spoilage problem in the French wine and beer industries. Technically, fermentation is the process by which foods are acted upon by microorganisms. Some of the food constituents are converted into acids, alcohol, and flavor components. Fermentation can occur naturally, or, as today, can be created under controlled conditions using "starter cultures". A "starter culture" is a large inoculum of a particular type of organism injected into a food. For example, all commercially prepared beers, wines, and bread are produced by the actions of specific microorganisms using a starter culture with a yeast from the genus Saccharomyces. Dairy products employ a different kind of starter culture, commonly utilizing either Streptococcus and Lactobacillus bacteria to produce lactic acid. An example of the value of modern biotechnology in food processing is production of the widely used enzyme rennin (chymosin) by the process of fermentation using recombinant microorganisms. Rennin, known as rennet when in the form of a dried commercial extract, is used, among other things, in the production of gelatin and in the making of cheddar and other cheeses. Rennin traditionally was obtained from the lining of the fourth stomach of a milk fed calf. This created several problems. First, the limited supply of enzyme that can be derived from this source made it expensive. Second, rennin derived from an animal origin cannot be used in any Kosher food. Many vegetarians also seek to avoid animal-derived rennin. The production of rennin by fermentation using recombinant microorganisms solved all of these problems. Chemically, it is identical with animal-derived rennin. It can be produced in bulk at a far lower cost. Since it is chemically produced and thus parve or neutral, it is Kosher and also will not offend vegetarians. Eventually, rennin produced in this manner is expected to supplant completely the production of rennet from calves. The process itself is quite interesting. Scientists successfully removed the gene necessary for rennet production in calves and transferred it into the DNA structure of E. coli, thus creating "cloned" rennet. In l990, the FDA approved the process for use on a large scale. Another example of an important ingredient used as a flavoring component that can be derived both naturally and using biotechnology is lipase. Lipase is an enzyme and protein often obtained in the past from animal sources, specifically from the pig pancreas and calf glands. Today, manufacturers can obtain lipase from plant sources such as yeast and other fungi that are grown on a large scale using fermentation methods. Through its action, lipase yields the fatty acids from which butter is made. Lipases are used by food technologists in making ingredients that break down fats and oils and also are used in combination with other raw materials to provide flavorings for specific cheeses such as camembert cheese. It adds a pleasant moldy-type flavor to many other fungal ripened cheeses. Cheeses made with lipase derived from yeast or fungi sources are known as enzyme modified . Since lipase can be derived naturally from either pancreatic sources or plant sources, if the cheese has a Kosher certification on it then the consumer knows that the camembert cheese is made from a natural and or neutral source. On food labels frequently appear the terms "natural flavors"and "artificial flavors" . While knowing whether an ingredient or flavoring used in a product is obtained from natural or artificial sources is important, it is equally important to many concerned consumers to know what kind of natural ingredients or flavorings are in the food product. A Kosher certification on a food product tells the consumer not only that all ingredients of the product themselves are Kosher, but that certain standards with respect to manufacturing methods and were met." A Kosher certification also reflects whether the product is of dairy origin, of animal origin, or is parve (neutral).   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Dr. Judith Leff, "The Modern Food Industry and Kashrus", Jewish Action. Pg.39. _____ _____ The definition of "natural" is "nothing artificial or synthetic including all color additives regardless of source is added to or included in a product that would not normally be expected to be in a product." Charles Manley, "Biotechnology Age", in Bioprocess Production of Flavor, Fragrance, and Color Ingredients. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, New York. l994. Pg.23. Joe. M. Regenstein and Carrie E. Regenstein, "The Food Industry, Kosher Foods, and Modern technology." 2/25/96 gopher://israel.nysern...n/bakol/kosher/biodosr. pp.2 An enzyme, is a specialized protein made up of long chains of amino acids.   Sheldon Krimsky, PhD., professor of urban and environmental policy at Tufts University, and a member of the board of the Council for Responsible Genetics, a public interest group active in genetic issues, put it this way: "Without labeling, mixing and matching genes may be very disruptive for many people who have chosen or learned to eat certain foods for religious, moral, or health reasons. Some vegetarians may not want to consume even a single gene contributed by an animal, and some Jews and Muslims may not want to eat any genetic material from a pig." "Designer Genes", Tufts University Diet & Nutrition Letter, Vol.10, No.6, August l992. New York, New York at p. 7.   Id. at p. 7.   Title 21 Code of Federal Regulations § 101.22.   David C. Eaton, edited by Alan Gableman,. "Dairy Flavors". Bioprocess of Production of Flavor, Fragrance, and Color Ingredients, John Wiley & Sons. pp. 172. l994. Theodore P Labuza, John W. Erdman, Jr., "Food Fermentors: The Useful Germs",. Food Science and Nutritional Health. West Publishing Company pp. 330-331. l984. "Chemically identical" is not a term frequently used in the United states. It means that, while there may be a slight difference in the chemical structure as compared with the original ingredient (such as a different amino acid sequence at one or both ends of the protein chain of the enzyme), it is functionally indistinguishable. David C. Eaton,"Dairy Flavors" Bioprocess Production of flavor, Fragrance, and Color Ingredients, Edited by Alan Gableman, pp. 172. l994 John wiley & sons, Inc.