A Genetic Fix to Put the Taste Back in Tomatoes

There&#x27;s a similar problem with popcorn. Showing my age card here, but back in the 1970&#x27;s popcorn actually tasted like <i>corn</i>, 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.<p>People always ask if I don&#x27;t like tomatoes when I eat around them in salads or remove from burgers. Nope, I love tomatoes, that&#x27;s why I don&#x27;t eat flavorless, unseasonal ones.<p>pro tip: Use canned tomatoes instead of fresh whenever out of season; canners use varieties that have not been ruined for shipping, and seal at the peak of freshness.

Temple Grandin had some interesting thoughts on how single trait breeding can lead to adverse affects in her discussion on &quot;Rapist Roosters&quot;, and how this relates to software[0]. It seems like this is also happening here.<p>Typically when single trait breeding leads to an adverse, undesirable affect (lack of taste), while the selected trait was obtained (in this case, possibly bigger size) breeders don&#x27;t start from scratch by trying to isolate the desired trait without obtaining the undesirable trait. Instead, as in software, the breeders iterate by trying to remove the negative trait, complicating the hybrids and possibly more unknown adverse traits. It seems like it might be wise to start from scratch in some cases and keep it simple, rather then make hybrid species whose lineage can be difficult to trace.<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;books.google.com&#x2F;books?id=aMVmhqpILOAC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;source=gbs_ge_summary_r&amp;cad=0#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;books.google.com&#x2F;books?id=aMVmhqpILOAC&amp;printsec=fron...</a> page 70

<i>&gt; I don’t want people to not eat a great-tasting tomato because they’re scared of it</i><p>And we also don&#x27;t want anyone to claim exclusive rights on producing such tomatoes, because some moron came up with the idea to patent genes.

&gt; 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.<p>People like what they know. But I&#x27;m guessing repeated exposure could end up shifting the tastes.

amazing tasting tomatoes still exist around the world, if you are on vacation in Italy in the summer buy some &quot;cuor di bue&quot; tomatoes at the supermarket and they will be amazing.<p>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 &quot;normal&quot; supermarket ones are going to be orders of magnitude tastier than anything you can find in North America in my experience.<p>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&#x27;s the way it&#x27;s always been, the summer ones are just as tasty now as they&#x27;ve always been so there&#x27;s no need to put taste &quot;back&quot; into them.

Tomatoes are practically weeds. They grow like crazy, and you can eat heirlooms as sweet or as savory as you like.<p>Sometimes I think I didn&#x27;t know wealth until I had a cherokee purple straight off the vine. You can practically make sashimi with it.<p>Now I&#x27;m just gonna come out and say it: fucking with genes worries me. It only takes one unforeseen toxic externality for the whole thing to turn out very poorly. (dangers of monocropping; turning plants into intellectual property, whatever the hell happened to pugs, etc.)<p>Just know how surprisingly easy it is to grow your own--and do! That&#x27;s all I&#x27;m saying.

This is perhaps the most hilarious thing I&#x27;ve seen. There are plenty of varieties of delicious tomatoes you can grow or buy.. the idea we need to &quot;reengineer a genetic fix&quot; seems like something the Onion should be running.<p>At our cooperative store we have amazing flavorful tomatoes.

There&#x27;s a book called &quot;Tomatoland&quot; that discusses the tomato industry and how tomatoes were selected not for taste, but to last through the journey to the supermarket and shelf life once there. Interview with author and excerpt are here: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;2011&#x2F;06&#x2F;28&#x2F;137371975&#x2F;how-industrial-farming-destroyed-the-tasty-tomato" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;2011&#x2F;06&#x2F;28&#x2F;137371975&#x2F;how-industrial-farmi...</a>

I like the story of the artificial banana flavour to be like the old tasteful bananas there where. I guess it&#x27;s not true, but the story of the banana is simmilar to the fate of the tomato, if not worse, because banas have no seeds, are all clones and the old kind of banana got mostly wiped by some fungi.

You should try importing tomatoes from Eastern Europe. They are still very tasty over here. :)

If you refrigerate tomatoes, they go bland --- the cold temperatures kills some of the flavour.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mobile.nytimes.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;10&#x2F;18&#x2F;science&#x2F;tomato-flavor-refrigerator.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mobile.nytimes.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;10&#x2F;18&#x2F;science&#x2F;tomato-flavor-...</a>

This is good stuff, but I wish so much effort wasn&#x27;t spent into making a <i>single</i> breed. If you have the greenhouse space (granted I see this is exponential), and some variation is a coin flip whether its better or not, please peruse both!<p>I would love 5 varieties of hardy tomato each testing better in its own way!

<i>Over the decades, taste has drained out of supermarket tomatoes.</i><p>And people say that organic doesn&#x27;t affect flavour! (Ok ok I know, it doesn&#x27;t have to be organic)<p>I grew my own tomatoes a few years ago and they had a very strong tomato flavour. Delicious!

Cited paper <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;science.sciencemag.org.sci-hub.ac&#x2F;content&#x2F;355&#x2F;6323&#x2F;391" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;science.sciencemag.org.sci-hub.ac&#x2F;content&#x2F;355&#x2F;6323&#x2F;39...</a>

Kumatos are pretty flavorful. In the US you can get them at Trader Joe&#x27;s.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Kumato" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Kumato</a>

From their website:<p>&gt; The University of Florida has released our first two hybrids. We are in discussions with seed companies about licensing.<p>I hope they allow people to save seeds. They should patent all their source seeds immediately and mark them as open&#x2F;allowing people to use any without worry of patents.<p>Farmers will need to be careful as always. Any seeds that happen to get cross pollinated with seeds from the big producers (Monsanto, DuPont, etc.) run the risk of paying licensing fees in our current fucked up patenting system (thanks GE).

Tomatoes and chickens and pretty much all American agriculture is bred to maximize profit at every step. This means eschewing things like healthfulness and tastiness in favor of volume of product, heartiness, and low production cost.<p>I highly recommend the book <i>The Dorito Effect</i> to anyone more interested in how the flavors of food have changed over time. Despite the fluffy name, it&#x27;s a very well-researched and well-written book.

I eat tomatoes grown by my father who is retired and does this as an hobby. His tomatoes are extremely tasty and satisfying. I really don&#x27;t miss the need for any genetic fix. Supermarkets tomatoes are commercialized unripe and then ripen by artificial means.

I used to eat tomato sandwiches made from tomoatoes grown in my parents&#x27; backyard. These beefsteak tomatoes were huge and sweet. The store variety are noticeably bland.<p>Going back to the backyard and starting again. I think the hard part is finding the right seed.

I&#x27;ve been spoiled living in Japan. The tomatoes taste amazing here. Is this more about methods? Do we really need genetic fixes? Couldn&#x27;t a better process to make better tomatoes be a longer service strategy?

I learned that its easier and way faster to quarter tomatoes and freeze them, then to can.

Couldn&#x27;t they just go overseas? I think it&#x27;s only in America where produce tastes like cardboard.

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.<p>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.<p>So they will look and taste good, but the nutritive value will be questionable.<p>Waste of research effort.<p>Edit: to the people modding this down: you realize that research will hit the poorest hardest? They can&#x27;t buy organic tomatoes, they think what they <i>paid</i> for is good <i>nutritive</i> food, except it isn&#x27;t.