Genes may help grocery tomatoes catch up to heirloom taste
January 26, 2017 at 1:35 p.m.
| Updated January 26, 2017 at 1:50 p.m.
by
Associated Press
FILE - In this March 23, 2011 file photo, a woman shops for tomatoes at a grocery store in Des Moines, Iowa. Scientists have cooked up a way to reintroduce a key ingredient into mass-produced tomatoes: taste. Researchers have figured out just the right spots on the genetic blueprint of tomatoes where flavor has been bred out of supermarket tomatoes for the past 40 or 50 years, according to a study in the journal Science. And using natural breeding methods, a little modernized with hand pollination by electric toothbrushes _ they are reinstalling five factors to add aroma and taste into the staple of salads. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Scientists have figured out how to add much needed taste to the bland mass-produced grocery tomato.
By tinkering with the genetic recipe of the supermarket tomato, researchers think they can return much of the flavor that has been bred out over the decades. They hope to help the cheaper tomato catch up to heirlooms in taste.
University of Florida researchers have identified changes to five genes that can add much of the lost taste.
They say a tastier supermarket tomato could be ready within three years.
The findings appear in Thursday's journal Science.
