[colechristensen]

Eh, I'll happily support GMO food but I'm not particularly eager to encourage arbitrary "healthy" traits that will make the produce aisle and the vitamin aisle converge. Genes spread beyond their intended target and even to other species. Such things should be done with caution.

[Teever]

This may come as a surprise to you but many other aisles of the grocery store have already converged with the vitamin aisle.[0]

Many foods that you've spent your entire life eating are already fortified with vitamins like Vitamin D. This isn't a bad thing at all, and in fact you and the people around you are probably far healthier for it.

https://inspection.canada.ca/food-label-requirements/labelli...

[babypuncher]

The introduction of iodine to table salt is arguably one of the biggest public health policy wins of the 20th century, only overshadowed by the near total bans on tetraethyl lead and CFCs.

[willcipriano]

Few people (in global terms) had flush toilets in the early 20th century. While iodine was huge for the west, toilets are still probably the most effective public health measure you can apply today as billions of people still lack them.

[colechristensen]

Manufactured foods, sure.

Nobody is going and injecting apples with vitamins though.

[Teever]

Now is that because they don't want to or is it because it isn't feasible to?

[adamc]

Milk comes to mind, but yes.

[parkingrift]

And what if we accomplish the same end result through selective breeding, as is common today?

[UncleOxidant]

It seems highly unlikely that selective breeding would result in tomatoes that have significant levels of useful vitamin D.

[more_corn]

I don’t find that unlikely at all. Tomatoes are very susceptible to improvement through selective breeding. Test for vitamin D each generation, plant seeds from the highest.

[JohnJamesRambo]

Tomatoes have 0.00 micrograms of vitamin D though.

[UncleOxidant]

And as the article pointed out that's not actually vitamin D, but a precursor to vitamin D and most of that small amount is in the leaves not the fruit.

[loceng]

Naw, let's play God and fuck with billions of years of evolution! /s

[ch4s3]

We already do and have been doing that with selective breeding since at least 10kya. If you look at Norman Borlaug's shuttle breeding program, it moved really quickly and in a way there was nothing natural about it.

[loceng]

Selective breeding is far from playing God, quite the apples to oranges comparison; you're not altering the code, you're putting two different naturally evolved genetic codes together and if the pregnancy is successful then it naturally occurred and fits within the existing natural framework of evolution.

[hpkuarg]

Keep in mind that man's God-intended natural state is "... nasty, brutish, and short".

[loceng]

I think we have different understandings or belief between God vs. nature. I think God exists within and/or from nature, a result of life and energy and consciousness evolving. Nature therefore may be "nasty, brutish, and short" however arguably God reaching the top of the competency hierarchy is an organization structure and would work towards order and efficiency, among other qualities or highest ideals.