This is with reference to the "Fool's Gold" tag attached to golden rice. While it is too hasty to project golden rice as a panacea to all nutritional problems related to beta-carotene deficiency, it is ridiculous to expect that any single food item should provide the entire requirement of a particular nutrient. We are concerned with people who cannot afford anything other than rice with green chillies and salt. If they can afford they would certainly add green leafy vegetables and fruits to their diet, even if it is not carrots. Recommending pills for nutritional supplementation should attract the wrath of the organics, as pills are chemicals.

Purified beta-carotene costs US$ 185/25 mg and one requires to take 5 mg/day.

There are about 160 species of plants used as food and/or medicine in India, that contain varying amounts of beta-carotene. A large number of green leafy vegetables are commonly used as in the other parts of the world. In India the highest content of beta-carotene is in one of the commonly used leafy vegetable amaranths (14.2mg/100g) and in taro leaves (12.0mg/100g), both much higher than in carrots (5.7mg/100g), spinach (5.5mg/100g) and beetroot (5.8mg/100g).

Can any one eat 100 g/day of any single vegetable? The staple grain such as rice and wheat are the only ones that can be consumed at about 200-300g/day. We get our nutritional supplements by complementation of several different sources. Fenugreek seed is very effective in controlling diabetes but one cannot eat some 100g of the bitter seed/day, Concentrated chemicals are a necessity in certain cases. No leukaemia patient can eat 1kg of vinca leaves to get the required dose of vincristine. The beta-carotene content of golden rice should certainly be maximised. Whatever beta-carotene is derived from golden rice is better than not having any of it at all. A number of people would be certainly be benefitted by whatever quantities of beta-carotene golden rice can provide, as their deficiencies are not excessive.

I wonder what different NGOs were doing when the Indian Government is forcing iodized salt, which is not needed by a very large section of the Indian population.

- C Kameswara Rao

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