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A Genetic Fix to Put the Taste Back in Tomatoes

nytimes.com

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Re: A Genetic Fix to Put the Taste Back in Tomatoes

#11

Post by searine »

quickben wrote: post #9
searine wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy to say on a full stomach.

That is not the point. The stomach will stay empty, but money will be spent. This is not gmo research, this is screwing the people that can't buy organic food.

The problem with food policy is that you simply can't get rid of cheap food. If you get rid of cheap food, even unhealthy cheap food, people starve.

So the solution isn't to demonize cheap food. It is to make cheap food better. Adding back the vitamins and nutrients which also impart flavor while keeping the caloric content high is one great way of doing that.

Furthermore, in a modern economy with diverse choice, nutrient deficiency is not a concern. Cheap food alone can more than provide the essential vitamins and nutrients. What is more important is delivery raw caloric content, which cheap food excels at.

Organic is fresh, luxury food built on a foundation of cheap staples. If you erode the pillars that hold up your palace, it will all come crashing down.

Re: A Genetic Fix to Put the Taste Back in Tomatoes

#12

Post by wyager »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #10

There's a similar problem with popcorn. Showing my age card here, but back in the 1970's popcorn actually tasted like corn , which seems to be a difficult concept to explain to anyone under 40. It all went south around the same time that microwave popcorn became popular. People always ask if I don't like tomatoes when I eat around them in salads or remove from burgers. Nope, I love tomatoes, that's why I don't eat fl…

> canners use varieties that have not been ruined for shipping

This explains why I love canned/boxed tomatoes, but hate the slimy, bland sliced ones they put on sandwiches.

Re: A Genetic Fix to Put the Taste Back in Tomatoes

#13

Post by burkaman »

quickben wrote: post #5

There is something wrong with the food industry. When I was growing up, they taught us that we eat veggies because when they are fully mature, all the nutrients are there and good for us. Somehow, they found out how to make them look ready but still not ripe. And now they found out how to screw the taste to taste better. So they will look and taste good, but the nutritive value will be questionable. Waste of research…

Why do you think this variety will be less nutritious than "organic" tomatoes?

Re: A Genetic Fix to Put the Taste Back in Tomatoes

#14

Post by tetraodonpuffer »

amazing tasting tomatoes still exist around the world, if you are on vacation in Italy in the summer buy some "cuor di bue" tomatoes at the supermarket and they will be amazing.

Of course if you happen to know somebody that grows them and you can pick them off the plant they will be even more incredible, but even the "normal" supermarket ones are going to be orders of magnitude tastier than anything you can find in North America in my experience.

The issue is of course that said tomatoes are available only for a short period of time, so if you are having a craving for them in December, you are out of luck, but that's the way it's always been, the summer ones are just as tasty now as they've always been so there's no need to put taste "back" into them.

Re: A Genetic Fix to Put the Taste Back in Tomatoes

#15

Post by debacle »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #10

There's a similar problem with popcorn. Showing my age card here, but back in the 1970's popcorn actually tasted like corn , which seems to be a difficult concept to explain to anyone under 40. It all went south around the same time that microwave popcorn became popular. People always ask if I don't like tomatoes when I eat around them in salads or remove from burgers. Nope, I love tomatoes, that's why I don't eat fl…

You can make popcorn in a saucepan, it's easy and fun. Gourmet popcorn (different kernels) also tastes far better even than the bulk kernels you can find in the store.

Re: A Genetic Fix to Put the Taste Back in Tomatoes

#16

Post by dkonofalski »

corybrown wrote: post #2

> In the tasting panels, there were noticeable differences in preferences: between men and women, between foodies and nonfoodies, and, perhaps most interesting, between older people and younger people. He recalled one of the students working in his laboratory picking out the supermarket tomato as her favorite in one of the taste tests. People like what they know. But I'm guessing repeated exposure could end up shifti…

Yeah, that doesn't seem like a very objective way to test this kind of thing. We know, based on all kinds of testing done in the past, that our tastebuds react more sensitively to tastes that we don't know to protect us from potentially eating foods that are poisonous or rotten. It's the reason why you have to develop a taste for things like bleu cheese and cilantro and why they taste bitter or strong at first. We're "programmed" to like foods that we've tasted before and are used to and that we know are safe to eat. When you introduce a flavor for something that we "know" what it's supposed to taste like, we naturally are averse to that taste. It's the same reason that people develop taste aversions to foods that they've gotten sick from or why people can't drink a liquor that they've had a terrible experience with. Your tastebuds "recognize" that this taste or flavor got you sick last time and prepare your body for it.

Re: A Genetic Fix to Put the Taste Back in Tomatoes

#17

Post by quickben »

burkaman wrote: post #13
quickben wrote: post #5

There is something wrong with the food industry. When I was growing up, they taught us that we eat veggies because when they are fully mature, all the nutrients are there and good for us. Somehow, they found out how to make them look ready but still not ripe. And now they found out how to screw the taste to taste better. So they will look and taste good, but the nutritive value will be questionable. Waste of research…

Why do you think this variety will be less nutritious than "organic" tomatoes?

Because they collect them green and then ship them with ethylene so they just look 'red' ?

Ethylene: The Ripening Hormone

http://postharvest.tfrec.wsu.edu/pages/PC2000F

Re: A Genetic Fix to Put the Taste Back in Tomatoes

#18

Post by dkonofalski »

searine wrote: post #6
djsumdog wrote: post #3

From their website: > The University of Florida has released our first two hybrids. We are in discussions with seed companies about licensing. I hope they allow people to save seeds. They should patent all their source seeds immediately and mark them as open/allowing people to use any without worry of patents. Farmers will need to be careful as always. Any seeds that happen to get cross pollinated with seeds from the…

>Any seeds that happen to get cross pollinated You can actually sue your neighbors and/or these companies for geneflow into your heirloom crops. There has never been a recorded lawsuit where a farmer has been sued for unintentional gene flow. Only intentional patent infringement. >(thanks GE). People have been patenting crops for over 100 years. Nobody cared until GMO's came along...

This is exactly why I despise the "urban legend" about Monsanto suing the poor, tiny farmer because their Round-Up resistant seeds blew into his crop. The actual story (much like the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit) makes a lot more sense when you learn that the farmer not only knew that their seeds were Monsanto's but then used Round-Up on all his other crops so that they would die and only the resistant crops were left over. He then took the seeds from those crops and planted something like 95% of his field with them (which was probably 100% but some of the old plants survived). There was no unintentional wind-blown spreading.

Re: A Genetic Fix to Put the Taste Back in Tomatoes

#20

Post by chc »

quickben wrote: post #5

There is something wrong with the food industry. When I was growing up, they taught us that we eat veggies because when they are fully mature, all the nutrients are there and good for us. Somehow, they found out how to make them look ready but still not ripe. And now they found out how to screw the taste to taste better. So they will look and taste good, but the nutritive value will be questionable. Waste of research…

Have you actually looked at solid numbers and seen alarming and easily fixable losses in nutrition, or are you trying to shame this guy based on assumptions?
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