"Taking Tomatoes Back to Their Tasty Roots" on NPR

[habitat_gardener]

Did anyone else catch this story on the radio this morning? Harry Klee at Univ. of Fla. is trying to make a high-yield tomato that tastes like a tomato, using molecular biology to insert red currant genes into productive market tomatoes. He thinks he can do this by increasing the volatiles instead of the sugars/acids, and he's called on a psychology prof. to do taste tests to see what people like.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=126907678

[Timmah!]

The way I see it, there's already a good enough answer(s): Farmers market and/or grow your own. If they're too lazy to do either of those, let them eat bland tomatoes.

[TZ-OH6]

How are the Anti GMO people going to react to that? I guess its OK since they are genes from another tomato????

[BlackestKrim]

I say that if they can make mass-farmable tomatoes that taste like tomatoes, props to them.

Tomato lovers will still want to grow their own and buy local, fresh varieties. This will just mean more people will get to experience the wonder of juicy tomatoes. Maybe from that they will branch out into other types of tomatoes, who can say?

I just find it sad that a whole generation is growing up thinking of tomatoes as bland, watery-tasting things because that is what they get at the supermarket. If they can help to fix that, this is great.

I hope their research works out.

[danwigz]

This was a pretty interesting piece, however the "Perfect" tomato probably exists, it just happens to be a different variety for each person.

I'm all for making mass produced tomatoes taste better; those of us who love the years it takes to breed in qualities, or grow our own aren't going to stop simply because the grocery store sells something that doesn't taste like tomato water.

Dan