DailyDirt: Better Tasting Fruits And Vegetables

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

If fruits and vegetables tasted even better, maybe people would include more in their diet. Part of what researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are trying to do is to improve the taste and nutritional profile of specialty crops like fruits and vegetables, in the hope that Americans will adopt a healthier diet. For generations, humans have been inadvertently breeding the nutrients out of fruits and vegetables, by selecting varieties that are more palatable (i.e., higher in sugar and starch). Then, somewhere along the way, appearance became important, and farmers began breeding aesthetically pleasing varieties, often at the expense of taste. So, now we're stuck with some pretty bland products. Here are some more tasty links.

• For the past 70 years or so, people have been breeding tomatoes for a uniform red color, but in the process, a gene that increases sugar content in tomatoes was inactivated. The gene, SlGLK2, increases the formation of chloroplasts, which are responsible for producing sugars through photosynthesis. Researchers have shown that by re-inserting an intact copy of the gene into tomatoes, they could increase the amount of glucose and fructose by up to 40%, while still retaining the uniform color ripening trait. Too bad they weren't actually able to taste them (federal regulations prohibit sampling experimental crops). [url]
• Researchers have found that today's Fuji apples are mealier, less flavorful, and more susceptible to disease than they were in the 1970s. The culprit: climate change. Studies in controlled temperature environments have shown that higher temperatures have been linked to a decrease in taste and texture in apples. Who knows what other crops might also have been changed due to global warming? [url]
• University of Florida researchers have discovered that they can improve the taste of fruits by exposing them to far-red light. They were able to use specific wavelengths of light to manipulate the production of volatile compounds that control aroma and taste in fruits like tomatoes, strawberries, and blueberries. Imagine your produce tasting even better after being stored in your far-red-light-equipped refrigerator! [url]

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Filed Under: apples, breeding, climate change, crops, diet, farming, food, fruits, gmo, taste, tomato, vegetables
Companies: usda

DailyDirt: Frankenfoods Are Going To Kill Us All! Or End World Hunger. Whichevers.

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

As the human population grows, we'll need to produce more food in the next 40 years than has ever been produced by agriculture over the last 8,000 years. Advances in biotechnology will enable us to do this, but genetically modified organisms (GMOs) aren't always beneficial. We'll need to look more closely at the safety of GMOs and the unintended consequences of genetic engineering, but some time in the future, the world will need to accept some amount of frankenfood to maintain our food supply. Here are just a few informative links on the topic of genetically modified foods.

• Conventional breeding methods are messy, and in some ways, genetic engineering is even messier. Specifically breeding plants to change their genetic material can be risky no matter how it's done. Ultimately, we need to make sure that the GMOs we produce are more beneficial than dangerous. [url]
• Maybe you've already made up your mind that GMO foods are the devil. In that case, here's a short list of companies that sell non-GMO food. Obviously, this list is meant for Americans.... [url]
• GMO myths are everywhere because it doesn't take much to scare people into thinking genetically modified foods are dangerous. Is it too late to have more reasonable conversations about genetic engineering? [url]

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Filed Under: agriculture, biotech, breeding, farming, food, frankenfood, genetic engineering, gmo

DailyDirt: Love Will Find A Way...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Biology is almost never as simple as it appears, and studying how animals evolve is an endless task filled with unanswered questions. Life begets life in a multitude of ways -- sometimes with strange or unexpected results. Scientists are conducting a few unnatural breeding experiments with plants and animals that sound like science fiction, and here are just some examples.

• French researchers devised an experiment to determine what would happen if shrimp could time travel -- re-animating preserved brine shrimp eggs from 1985, 1996 and 2007 to mate with each other. Shrimp specimens that mated with shrimp from the past or future died more quickly than contemporary mating... so Sarah Connor should be a bit wary of the pickup line, "Come with me if you want to live." [url]
• Little kids might ask where babies come from, but real scientists ask, "Where did plant sex come from?" Apparently, the answer is low oxygen levels in the atmosphere that trigger some plant cells to become sex cells. This discovery could lead to new ways to manage plant seeds -- as well as a patent for plant sex under varying oxygen concentrations. [url]
• Plans for colonizing other planets could be derailed by the sterilizing effects of radiation from outer space. Cosmic rays are difficult to shield away from astronauts, so there need to be a few more studies to figure out how humans will reproduce without the Earth to protect us. [url]

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Filed Under: biology, breeding, corn, cosmic rays, oxygen, radiation, reproduction, shrimp, space colonization