Anti-Cancer GM Tomato: Towards "Food 2.0"

The knee-jerk bias against GM crops in the UK and Europe is a classic example of the type of Luddite-mentality numptyism all too prevalent in this part of the world.

But to be fair, the food industry has hardly done itself many favours, historically positioning GM food as only useful to those in the agricultural industry. It's hard to get the skeptical public excited about pesticide resistance, or the ability to grow in sub-optimal soil.

For a while, I've believed that the way to position GM is as a way to make food *better*, not just cheaper or more available.

Why has nobody taken a leaf out of the Steve Jobs school of marketing and tried to make GM food cool - almost saying "Why would you want old, boring food, when you can get the awesome new Food 2.0, with all these great features!"

So it's great to see the publicity around the purple tomato with the extra anti-oxidants, which have improved the longevity of mice in terms of cancer. Predictably, lots of organic-minded muesli-knitters from the Soil Association and other lobby groups have decried it, which just goes to show that they recognise the power of this new strategy.

Let's see more moves towards "Food Plus".