More coloured tomatoes are tasteless, a study shows
Friday, June 29th, 2012 2:27:17 by Zeeshan Gohar
Whenever we go the vegetable market or Sabzi Mandi to buy tomatoes, we always ask for fresh and comparatively more coloured ones believing that they will be tastier than those less red. Event the farmers who breed the tomatoes prefer to pluck the tomatoes off the plants when they are richly coloured having the same belief that they will be more healthful and tastier.
However, this belief has been neglected by a study conducted by the doctors from University of California Davis. According to this new study on tomatoes, the tomatoes that have the perfect colour are tasteless.
The study was conducted by a team of scientist led by Dr Ann Powell who studied that the breeding process which produced this colour has accidentally disabled a key gene used in photosynthesis which has caused a reduction in the sugars that gives the fruit its sweet taste.
Dr Ann Powell said, “This information about the gene responsible for the trait in wild and traditional varieties provides a strategy to recapture quality characteristics that had been unknowingly bred out of modern cultivated tomatoes.”
She added, “Now that we know that some of the qualities that people value in heirloom tomatoes can be made available in other types of tomatoes, farmers can have access to more varieties of tomatoes that produce well and also have desirable colour and flavour traits.”
The tomato growers produce varieties in which all the fruit ripens at once and develops the same even, red colouring so that it will look more appealing to shoppers. But the scientists have found that the process of ripening the fruit more to make it attractive reduces the taste.
On the other hand, tomatoes with active copies of the gene ripen at different rates and come in varying shades, but contain higher levels of sugar.
Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=27558
Posted by Zeeshan Gohar
on Jun 29 2012. Filed under Health, Sci-Tech.
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