Cotton as source of bare necessities

In the era of synthetic meat, made from plant material or cloned meat cells, it should not come as a total surprise that scientists have developed a strain of cotton, whose seeds are edible for human beings. Cattle, of course, already merrily chomp on cotton seeds. Cotton seed oil is consumed by people, whether they know it or not, and whether the cotton plant from which these are derived has been genetically modified or not. The oil cake, the stuff that remains after oil has been pressed out of the seeds, is a protein-rich component of cattle feed, too. So, it was not far-fetched to imagine that cotton seeds could be made into human food, too. All it took was for scientists to make one gene go to sleep, for the plant to stop producing a chemical that made the seed toxic for human consumption.

The next logical step is to genetically modify the cotton plant to increase and strengthen its fibre content, so that the body of the plant can be used for making wood. Then, indeed, the cotton plant would yield humankind’s three basic necessities: food, clothing and shelter. The increased efficiency in resource utilisation this would lead to should be good for combating climate change, too. There is just one downside: cottonmouth is a variety of poisonous snake now, but would literally describe some humans, too.