Question
Question: Golden rice is rich in A) Vitamin B B) Vitamin A C) Both (A) and (B) D) none of these...
Golden rice is rich in
A) Vitamin B
B) Vitamin A
C) Both (A) and (B)
D) none of these
Solution
Golden rice is a genetically modified variant of rice, which was developed to overcome the shortage of specific nutrients in the diet.
Complete answer:
Before we look into the vitamin present in golden rice, let's have a brief look at the details of golden rice.
Golden rice was developed as a part of Biofortification. Biofortification is the process of increasing nutritional content in a food crop with help of genetic engineering, selective breeding etc. Golden rice was engineered from normal rice by Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer during the 1990s.
Now let's analyse the options to find the correct answer.
Option A : Vitamin B is not present in golden rice. Vitamin B is normally found in food items such as egg, milk, cheese etc. Therefore, this is the incorrect option.
Option B : Golden rice was originally developed to overcome vitamin A deficiency. With the help of genetic engineering, a pigment called beta-carotene was introduced into golden rice. Beta-carotene is considered to be the precursor of pro-vitamin A. Therefore, this is the correct option.
Option C : Since vitamin B is absent in golden rice and only vitamin A is present, this is the incorrect option.
Option D : Since the answer is given, this is the incorrect option.
Thus the correct option is (B) Vitamin A.
Note: Examples for other biofortified food crops are:-
Biofortified rice, beans, sweet potato etc. containing iron.
Biofortified wheat, rice, beans etc. containing zinc.
Biofortified sweet potato, maize etc. containing provitamin A.