Why tomatoes taste bad, how biotech could revolutionize a ‘lost’ fruit—and why you may never eat one XiaoZhi Lim

XiaoZhi Lim | August 12, 2016 | Genetic Literacy Project

Supermarket tomatoes have a sorry reputation for looking great but tasting…well, you know…like cardboard. It’s a shame, as tomatoes are very nutritious and a better-tasting tomato would encourage people, especially children, to eat it. Short of buying only heirloom tomatoes, which is not practical for everyone, what is the future of the tomato?

A tomato’s taste is heavily influenced by its genes. Conventional breeding has not been able to strike a very good balance between taste and productivity, but that’s not the end of the story. Research efforts in genetic modification could bring back flavor in tomatoes, and a research study shows that these efforts are paying off: consumers in a taste test preferred genetically engineered tomatoes over conventional and even organic heirloom tomatoes.

How the supermarket tomato lost its flavor.  The demise of the tomato’s flavor started about seventy years ago when growers noticed that some tomatoes turned red from green uniformly when they ripened. Back then, most tomatoes had shoulders—a raised area near the depression where the tomato attaches to the stem—that turned red slower than the rest of the tomato. The green shoulders made it difficult for farmers to tell when the tomato was ready to harvest, and shoppers did not like the look of them either.........Tomato breeders didn’t stop at eliminating the green shoulders. As they continued to breed for more productive tomatoes and more rugged tomatoes that could withstand rough handling and long-distance shipping, the tomato breeders compromised the tomato’s flavor......To Read More....

My Take - Years ago I sent away for aheirloom tomato seeds that were touted to be the best tasting tomatoes in the world - Brandywine and Pruden's Purple.  Both were great, both were very sweet as tomatoes go but neither had any real shelf life.  Pruden's Purple was a little better at that, but Brandywine was amazing tasting.  However.....if you didn't pick it and eat it..... it was sure to rot.  And if it hit the ground....it was generally gone.  They didn't grow in clusters, there weren't many per plant and they weren't tough.  Old time farmers grew them for taste....for themselves.  

I've found Brandywine plants in garden centers in recent years but I have to say.....they don't taste the same as those I grew years ago.  Someone's - it seems to me - has been tampering, and I don't start plants from seen any longer so I may never know the pleasure of eating a good Brandywine or Pruden's Purple again.