The use of genetic engineering to improve the nutritional profile of traditional plant foods

Today, either for cultural, philosophical or economic reasons, a large segment of the world population relies on plant-based diets to fulfill their nutritional requirements. However, often this kind of diet does not supply the minimum amount of essential vitamins and minerals needed to maintain proper health, leading to a phenomenon known as ‘hidden hunger’. This chapter gives an overview of this problem and the potential of genetic engineering to address it. After briefly describing what are genetically modified (GM) foods and the common genetic engineering techniques used to modify plants, we give an overview of traditional crops already targeted for nutritional profile improvement and, using as case studies rice, potato, soybean and maize, we provide a detailed description of efforts done to improve their nutritional contents. Finally, we list GM plant foods with modified nutritional profile currently under approval for commercial use, and discuss the socioeconomic impact and safety of GM foods.