Cobalt 60 Sauce is a barbecue sauce made from common mutation bred ingredients.
Mutation (or radiation) breeding is the process of exposing plants and seeds to radiation to cause random mutations. The mutated plants that show desirable attributes can then be reproduced, creating a mutant variety from the original stock. Mutation breeding is an agricultural technology that has proliferated globally since the end of World War II. For over 60 years, scientists on six continents have been exposing plants and seeds to radiation and chemicals, in order to induce mutations.
More than 2,500 mutant crop varieties have been registered with the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Commercially-released varieties can be found in the database of Mutation-Enhanced Technologies for Agriculture (META). These organisms populate our human food systems and sit anonymously on our supermarket shelves. Cobalt 60 Sauce features five radiation-bred ingredients: Rio Red Grapefruit, Milns Golden Promise Barley, Todd’s Mitcham Peppermint, Calrose 76 Rice and Soy.
This is a speculative food design project from artist-led think tank, The Center for Genomic Gastronomy.
