[Wonder Warthog]

"Cotton has never been a source of food. However, if you would check the labels of the processed foods in you supermarkets, cotton oil has been added to a lot of foods such as peanut butter. Deliberating breeding fruits and vegetables for desirable traits is different."

The oil contains no gossypol. I suspect the use of cottonseed oil probably dates back to the Egyptians.

And unless I am not understanding the article correctly, selective breeding and crossing was precisely the technique used to develop the gossypol-free seed variety...not gene splicing.

[yuleeyahoo]

Cotton seed was considered a waste product from the production of cotton until the mid 1800’s. Proctor and Gamble discovered that the oil, when hydrogenated; could be used as a cooking oil.They called it Crisco. David Wesson made a similar product. Eventually, it lost it’s place to soybean oil due to costs and shortages.

This is just another case of industry trying to find a market for its waste.