Atom’s Blog

The debate about GMO labeling is a red Franken-herring.

GMOs are a mere nuisance compared to the atomic manipulation of food (and its packaging).

An ever-expanding number of corporations are building “smart meters” into the global food supply.

These self-assembling “foods” are capable of regulating a consumer’s intestines.

Soon we won’t know if “who is eating what” or if “what is eating who.”

According to the ETC Group (Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration)…

“In late 2012, the CEO of California-based Solazyme announced that his company had developed a new high-value ‘tailored oil’ with a fatty acid composition very similar to cocoa butter. According to Solazyme: ‘We’ve also developed another first of its kind capability, the ability to control the specific position of specific fatty acids in the oil. Positioning the fatty acids plays a major role in creating the physical properties of cocoa butter like its sharp melting curve.”

According to the same source …

“Solazyme launched a new product line: ‘Encapso,’ an encapsulated lubricant for oil drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking). In May 2014 Unilever announced that it is using Solazyme’s ‘Algal Oils’ in the production of Lux brand soap. Since 2011, Solazyme has sold microalgae-derived ingredients for the company’s commercial skin care products known as ‘Algenist.’ Solazyme has a joint venture with agribusiness giant Bunge to build and operate a commercial-scale tailored oils production facility next to Bunge’s Moema sugarcane mill in Brazil.”

The excerpts above were quoted from …

“Cocoa Butter & Synthetic Biology: A Case Study”

Other case studies on the ETC Group Website include …

1) “Case Studies in the Impact of Synthetic Biology: Coconut oil, palm kernel oil and babassu”

“‘Synthetic biologists’ apply computer-aided design and engineering to living organisms. The aim is to redesign existing biological organisms and even to create entirely new ones. Synthetic biology is ‘extreme genetic engineering’ and its goal is to derive commercially-valuable compounds from novel living organisms rather than from conventional sources (e.g., crops, petroleum).

“Currently, synthetic biology companies are engineering ‘metabolic pathways’ in microbes in order to create ‘biological factories’ that produce desired compounds. According to current scientific understanding, as few as eight key metabolic pathways may be responsible for almost all of the 200,000 known natural plant compounds. Synthetic biologists are rapidly decoding, re-constructing and patenting these pathways. In the words of one synthetic biologist: ‘We ought to be able to make any compound produced by a plant inside a microbe.'”

2) “Case Study: Patchouli and Synthetic Biology”

“Patchoulol, the key component [in] patchouli oil, has been produced through synthetically altered microorganisms by California-based biotech company Amyris in partnership with Firminich, the Swiss purveyor of perfumes and flavours.”

3) “Case Study: Vetiver and Synthetic Biology”

“California-based synthetic biology company, Allylix, Inc., has engineered a metabolic pathway in microbes to produce a key fragrance compound found in vetiver oil.”
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