The nightmarishly complex wheat genome finally yields to scientists

Re:The nightmarishly complex wheat genome finally yields to ... by CydeWeys on Saturday August 18, 2018 @08:43AM (#17788205)

You're speaking from the perspective of someone who always has enough to eat, so you have the privilege of optimizing for nutrient ratios. Billions of other people aren't so lucky, and they just need more calories period. Wheat is great that, along with rice, soybeans, and other staple crops that are better in the growing/volume sense than in the nutritional sense. Not all of humanity can afford boutique heirloom artisanal hand-grown crops that are $10 per pound.

If we're going to optimize for anything, it's for feeding as many people as possible -- there are far fewer celiac sufferers than there are people who go without enough food. Optimizing the food chain to protect you would result in many more people dying from starvation, because you'd be eliminating an efficient, widely grown crop that feeds many. Wheat is the second most important crop in the world, behind only rice.

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Re:The nightmarishly complex wheat genome finally yields to ... by code_duck on Saturday August 18, 2018 @08:59AM (#17788252)

Actually, I’m speaking from the perspective of someone who is dying from starvation despite being surrounded by available food.

There is nothing special about wheat. All of the resources spent on growing wheat could be expended on many other crops which would provide equal or greater nutritional benefit. The reason wheat is a globally important crop is simply because people have made it that way for arbitrary reasons, like raising European cattle in North America.

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