The way we produce and consume food has undergone many changes in the last half century, which has markedly affected the taste of fruit and vegetables. Moreover, this situation is encountered not only in our country, but also in most parts of the world.
The most important reason for this flavor reduction is “domestication,” according to Clifford Weil, director of the National Science Association’s Plant Genome Research Program. So why do we tame our food at the expense of taste?
Let’s take the example of tomato, one of the vegetables (technically a fruit) whose flavor and aroma have decreased the most over the years.
The aroma found in tomatoes, which is consumed almost everywhere in the world, is determined by sugars and acids that activate our taste buds, and a series of volatile compounds that trigger our olfactory receptors. For this reason, it is often preferred as a sauce.
Tomato is a perishable vegetable while being transported over long distances and kept in storage. To prevent this, tomatoes were domesticated to be resistant to these conditions.
But no genetic intervention was made. According to Zhangjun Fei, a plant geneticist at Cornell University; Tomatoes and other foods lost their flavor genes, as plants with more yielding and more durable properties were preferred.
The gene that helps give tomato its flavor is absent in 93% of domesticated (modern) species.
International researchers collected the genome information of garden tomatoes and wild tomatoes and compared them with the domesticated tomato genome. This comparison revealed that the modern tomato genome lacks the roughly 5,000 genes that the garden and wild tomato have.
As distressing as the truth revealed by these studies is, this discovery may bring the flavor of tomatoes, and even other foods, back in years to come.
Identifying these previously unknown genes may help producers produce better fruit and vegetables. Since these missing genes also provide pathogens to plants, tomato varieties with genetic resistance can be developed against diseases that can be overcome by today’s pesticides or other costly and non-environmentally friendly methods.
Those who remember the true taste of vegetables and fruits continue to consume them by resorting to lesser-known methods.
They can get good products by swapping ancestral seeds or they take care to buy products sold by villagers in local markets in rural areas of Anatolia.
Sources: Discover Magazine, Nature, Popular Science
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