Golden rice …! The term sounds good to hear right …! Did you ever heard about biofortified foods ? If yes , you will be familiar with the term golden rice even .. First of all , let us know few interesting things about biofortified foods , before going into our actual topic i.e., golden rice .
What is biofortification ?
Biofortification is the process , that aims at breeding crops with higher levels of vitamins , minerals , protein and healthier fat content in foods – these would complement the existing nutritional approaches . It is the mostly used practical means in order to improve public health . It is a part of an integrated food systems approach to reduce malnutrition . The process of producing nutrient rich foods through the process of bio fortification are known as biofortified foods . Golden rice is a biofortified crop .
Golden Rice :
Golden rice is also considered as a first purposefully created biofortified crop . According , to a research.. It states that the research that led to golden rice was conducted with the goal of helping children those who suffer from VAD ( Vitamin A Deficiency ) . Golden rice , is a source of Vitamin A , is an additional intervention . VAD is a major public health issue and the most significant cause of child mortality and blindness . Golden rice is genetically modified in order to produce beta – carotene , which is not normally available in rice. When metabolized by the human body , the beta – carotene is converted into vitamin – A .
Wheat variety ( Atlas 66 ) , has a high protein content . Iron fortified rice variety containing over five times as much iron as in commonly consumed varieties and beta carotene containing rice variety i.e., golden rice are developed . Golden rice is a transgenic variety of rice with genes for the synthesis of alpha – carotene from daffodil are inserted into the genome of a temperate strain of rice using a Agrobacterium tumefaciens vector , to effect the transfer . The Golden rice was created by transforming rice with two beta – carotene biosynthesis genes i.e., the psy & ctrl genes .
The advantage of golden rice is that it can be used as a supplement where vitamin A is deficient . The biofortification of rice is done in the form of provitamin A , which results in yellow colour . Golden rice doesn’t completely eradicate the VAD , it only ameliorates it . Thus , nutritional genomics has been applied to rice for the development of golden rice .
Know : Food Tech..! 