Gmo Cheese

As we enter the new millennium, science and technology are advancing in new ways that were once viewed as impossible. Recently, scientists have been experimenting in a controversial area, genetics. Researchers are developing techniques to genetically modify organisms to increase the final yield in food products (1). GM, or genetically modified, food involves altering a plant, animal or micro-organism's genes or inserting one gene from one organism to another (2). The labeling of these genetically modified foods has become a recent issue. One product in particular that can greatly benefit from biotechnology is hard cheese. The genetically modified organism is not in the final cheese product, but only used in the making of the cheese. Based on this discrepancy, manufacturers can label the cheese as a "genetically modified organism (GMO) free" (4). This leads to the issue whether cheese should bear the genetically modified food label, when in fact there are no genetically modified organisms in the cheese. The answer to this query is yes. If anything is altered in the natural process of production, it is important for the public to know all aspects of that production. When a consumer reads a label they expect to get exactly what is on that label, regardless of the legality and semantics of wording.

The process of making cheese dates back to around 3000 B.C. as a way of preserving and transporting milk. The key catalyst in cheese production is an enzyme entitled chymosin, a byproduct of calf rennet. The enzyme chymosin is the active ingredient of rennet which is used to curdle milk. Traditionally, rennet has been taken from calves' stomachs, but the demand for cheese is greater than the number of calves available, and the chymosin does not always produce consistent batches of cheese. Today there are six major sources of the enzyme protease that can be used to coagulate milk: three from animals and the other three from fungi (4). In addition, chymosins can be derived from genetically-modified microbes. During the production of hard cheese, the GM organism is a processing aid. Today, the gene responsible for producing chymosin is inserted into yeast making the chymosin instead of using traditional rennet. Only the yeast is genetically modified, not the chymosin, and so the cheese has no GM content because the bacteria are not part of the cheese (2). Even though the final product does not contain something, it is important to label it accordingly with all aspects to production.

Furthermore, the means of production are just as important as the final product, as observed with kosher food. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regards the key factors to be the characteristics of the food and its intended use, rather than the fact that new methods are used in its production (4). This is