Scientists Create Genetically Modified ‘Super Banana’ That Could Save Thousands of Children’s Lives

Vitamin A deficiency is one of the leading causes of children's deaths in Uganda - but scientists hope that a new superfruit could significantly lower the statistics

It is also the leading cause of preventable blindness - and can significantly increase the risk of disease from severe infections.

Now scientists in Australia have developed a revolutionary ‘super’ banana, rich in pro-vitamin A, which could save the lives of the hundreds of thousands of children who die from this deficiency every year.

The golden-fleshed fruit was created by researchers from Queensland University of Technology, who have been growing the biofortified bananas for over the last 10 years - thanks to $7.6 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The bananas were created by taking genes from a species of provitamin A-rich banana found in Papa New Guinea, which only grows in small bunches.

Scientists then fused it with the ‘household’ Cavendish banana - the bunches which are produced in mass which most people are familiar with seeing in the supermarket.

The result is an unusual orange-coloured banana that could significantly increase the vitamin intake of the consumer.

Writing in Wiley’s Plant Biotechnology journal, Professor James Dale, who led the research, said: “Over the years, we’ve been able to develop a banana that has achieved excellent provitamin A levels, hence the golden-orange rather than cream-coloured flesh.”

The team have already trialled growing the bananas in Australia, where the fruit exceeded expectations by producing double the level of provitamin A than expected.

“Achieving these scientific results along with their publication, is a major milestone in our quest to deliver a more nutritional diet to some of the poorest subsistence communities in Africa,” Prof Dale said. “Our science works. We tried and tested hundreds of different genetic variations here in our lab and in field trials in Queensland until we got the best results.

"These elite genes have been sent to Uganda in test tubes where they have been inserted into Ugandan bananas for field trials there.”

Scientists are now keen to test the results of growing the bananas in East Africa, where cooked bananas are already a staple part of of the country’s diet.

Despite scientists making significant in roads in reducing vitamin A deficiency worldwide, research has found that the deficiency in children aged between six months and five years in Uganda has increased from 20 percent in 2006 to 38 per cent in 2011.

If initial field trials are successful, the researchers hope that their bananas will be self-sufficiently grown by Ugandan farmers by as early as 2021.

My braunschweiger comes from some bucolic Lutherans in Iowa. Nothing but the best.

Now you're talking.

It may not have been one of those fugitive flashes ---but it was solid.

In other news, according to this; http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/iron-deficiency-anemia/manage/ptc-20266647

foods containing vitamin C ... enhance iron absorption

I didn't know that either.

Now you can have watermelon with your spinach.

Sounds strange, but after a spinach salad (with hard boiled egg?) a nice fat slice of watermelon could be nice...

If you like fish, and whitefish would do, Arctic and Icelandic cod is waay better than cheaper tilapia (which is fresh water, farm raised, often imported from China)

Whether the cod would those have more iron - I don't know, but would guess it's likely they would. The point of this jabbering is grilled fish crumbled up in a nice salad can be good. Everyone has heard about Crab Louis (salad). Substitute whitefish, and there ya' go.

One recipe --- in normal iron skillet --- hot oil (not too hot) add one teaspoon of soy, and one tablespoon of vinegar. Quickly ---add fish fillets. I say quickly because when the oil is hot, it will begin bubbling and steaming the vinegar and soy. Heat for 3 minutes on one side (for a one inch thick fillet, possible less for thinner pieces), turn the fillet over in the pan and heat for 2 minutes more. Remove and drain on paper, and paper towels -- whatever. The fish should easily break apart, allowing one to crumble it into salad (spinach, maybe some red lettuce). I would go ahead and put the fish right into the salad and use a fork to gently break it up, instead of dirtying up yet another bowl, or plate.

Before you know it, you'll be good as new. And just think of all the fun you could have -- if you use enough hard boiled eggs, a while later you could hold your hand out to Mr. Don-o, and say "pull my finger". Take care with that last, however. Ask oneself -- "dry trumpet?" -- or if not, well, then don't try it.

I don't think trying to cook frozen fillets would work, not unless a slow cook, and not in a pan where there was direct heat, more on one side.

Or should you thaw them first, and if so, how to best do that quickly without turning everything into mush.

Thawing fish in a plastic bag can work. Put the bag in a large bowl, add water. Or even not, but water, being denser than air conducts heat better. Tap water temps are best. Some warmth to the water when first beginning thawing is ok, if there's more than say -- a pound of fish to thaw? The water will get cold to the touch fairly quickly. Normal 'cold' tap water can suffice. With the pacaged frozen tilapia I have bought recently (each fillet in it's own sealed plastic, many of those to one larger bag) I thaw them in water when quick-thawing, even though the package says don't do that.

If the fish is too mushy -- try some other kind of fish next time around? I dunno... too many variables...

Salmon may be high in iron? I do favor the Pacific kind over the farm raised Atlantic.

Pacific King salmon (chinook) especially...but info I'm reading now indicates spinach to have 1.7X iron content than most tuna and salmon.

In descending order of favoritism from Kings; Red salmon (sockeye, often canned, but costs a lot more than pink salmon), Silver salmon (coho) sometimes seen in fish markets and grocery stores, but relatively seldom, Dog salmon (chum) no often marketed nationwide, and of course there's the ubiquitous pink salmon (humpies) in the can. The kings are $ure high in co$t though. But fresh king salmon on a smokey barbecue -- oh, yeah.

I don't know if swordfish steaks are high in iron (they might be) but they can be high in mercury. Some of that heavy metal stuff, you know? I hear big tunas can be high in mercury (it varies from fish to fish, depending on where they've been all their lives, I think).

Just now I went looking for nutritional info for tuna. That would vary depending on type, but then still be somewhat comparable to one another at the same time.

I'm not recommending Starkist as some kind of "better" canned tuna. It's not, really -- I used to favor Bumble Bee because West Coast fisherman sold albacore to Bumble Bee for decades after Starkist pretty much went away, and didn't transship from the West Coast to wherever they had canneries. BUT Starkist has a web page on 'solid white' albacore. Iron levels, expressed as percentage (of daily recommended allowance I assume) are low at 2% for about half a five ounce can, but are high for Selenium -- 70% -- which you may be a bit low in also?

For albacore in the can, if not satisfied with the normal Starkist/ Bumble Bee / whatever brand X import, I can recommend the canned albacore at Whole Foods. Last I bought it I could get a 5 ounce can (in water) for about $2 --=maybe $2.50. The tuna packed in oil would be about $4. Why that much difference, I do not know? High quality olive oil maybe? BUT -- the fish come from American hook-and-line tuna fisherman -- most all the tuna was bled and blast frozen at sea (instead of brine frozen -- which can add salt) and each can is labeled on the bottom for what boat it supposedly came from.

Too much info. Sorry. Fetching iron content info for farmed tilapia, and catfish may have been a better use of my time, and yours.

I do wonder though, about trace minerals possibly associated with iron, and iron deficiency. In the back of my mind -- it seems I've run across mentions of something along those lines, sort-of comparable to how calcium uptake can be dependent upon presence of magnesium, and vitamin D.

Have your husband research it for you? You've got bucolic Lutherans in Ohio to go visit.

Thanks for your fishy ideas. I’m gonna try with whatever kind of finnies we have in the freezer.

Vitamin C will definitely multiply (threefold) the (extremely low, 3%) normal availability of veggie non-heme iron, bumping it up to 9%. Adding a small amount of heme-iron source (like meat/fish/shellfish) will multiply the whole whole plateful another threefold, bumping it up to 27% availability, which is considered fah-ha-habulous.

If you’re normal.

I am, regrettably, not normal—

Duh, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, not normal -—

... and I can’t absorb non-heme iron AT ALL. So all that spinach, pumpkin seeds, and so forth, is wasted in my dubious duodenum.

Bye for now, I’m fryin’ some fish to combat my brain fog. I’m turning into a daggone radical in-iron-mentalist.

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