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“Flavor is a trend that is coming back, without a doubt,” says Franco Fubini, founder of the fruit and vegetable supplier company Natoora.
You might be surprised that the flavor has never gone out of fashion.
But finding truly tasty varieties of fruits and vegetables can be difficult, in large part because of the demands of supermarkets, explains Fubini.
“They started to require varieties to have a longer shelf life, in the case of the tomato, for example, that it have a thicker skin so that the skin does not break easily, a ripening tomato can -be faster, which could absorb more water “.
“So over time you cultivate your varieties for the purpose of obtaining attributes other than taste. The taste then begins to lose importance and, because it comes from nature, if you grow for other traits you extract the flavor“.
Fubini’s company specializes in seasonal products selected for their flavor and sells its products to high-quality restaurants and shops around the world.
“Part of this renaissance is coming from restaurants, because chefs have a lot of influence,” he explains. “That and the travel spurred this renaissance of flavor, this quest for flavor.”
Farmers and researchers are leading this research, using sophisticated techniques to produce fruits and vegetables that have all the flavor of traditional varieties while making supermarkets happy.
Professor Harry Klee, Department of Horticultural Sciences, University of Florida, USA, is working to understand the chemical and genetic makeup of fruit and vegetable flavor, focusing on tomato.
“The tomato has been a long-term model system for fruit development. It has a short generation time, large genetic resources and [es] economically the most important fruit crop in the world.
“It was the second plant species to have a completely sequenced genome, a great help in studying the genetics of an organism.”
The taste of plants it’s a complex phenomenon.
In the case of tomatoes, it is a combination of sugars, acids and more than a dozen volatile compounds derived from amino acids, fatty acids and carotenoids.
Professor Klee wants to identify the genes that control the synthesis of these volatile compounds and use them to produce a better tasting tomato.
“We are not yet at the stage where we have completed the assembly of superior flavor characteristics on a single line, but we hope to achieve that in about a year,” he says.
Genetic modification (GM) can be used to improve flavor by importing genes from other species, but in much of the world products created in this way are prohibited.
However, other forms of genetic manipulation are more accepted.
The American firm Pairwise is working on new varieties of fruits and vegetables using CRISPR, the gene editing technology licensed from Harvard, the Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Instead of taking genes from other species, such as transgenics, CRISPR modifies existing genes in the plant by splicing.
“We’re making very small changes to one or two pieces of DNA,” says Haven Baker, co-founder of Pairwise.
In most countries in North America, South America and Japan, what is produced using this technique is considered “not genetically modified”.
However, in Europe, where the issue of genetic modification is very controversial, it is considered transgenic and is subject to strict regulation.
After leaving the European Union, the UK launched a consultation on the use of gene editing to modify livestock and food crops in England.
Even in the United States, where opinions are less strong, some producers are wary of genetic modification.
“We’re not fans of it at all. While sometimes well-done innovation can work, we believe in tradition and not necessarily stepping in. It’s about looking back at nature and the way nature works. “, emphasizes Fubini.
But there are innovations that would be extremely difficult to achieve without intervention at the genetic level.
One of the first products Pairwise is working on, which should be ready in a year or two, is a seedless blackberry which they say tastes more consistent than traditional varieties.
He is also working on a pitted cherry.
All of this could be done using traditional breeding techniques, but since fruit trees take years to grow, this would be a very long-term project.
“The cherry is one of the fruits that interests us and theoretically we could get a seedless variety through cultivation, but that would take us between 100 and 150 years,” says Baker.
Some in the agricultural industry combine old and new techniques.
American organic seed company Row 7 runs breeding programs to develop new, better tasting products.
Its seed suppliers use traditional cross-pollination techniques, as well as genomic selection (the ability to examine molecular genetic markers throughout the plant’s genome) to predict traits such as flavor with reasonable accuracy.
In addition, it has a network of 150 chefs and farmers who evaluate their work.
“They assess the varieties still in development and weigh their potential in the field and in the kitchen,” explains COO Charlotte Douglas.
One of its flagship products is Remolacha badger flame, grown to be eaten raw, tasting sweet without being earthy.
“This variety would have been lost without the advocacy of chefs and producers. It broadens our understanding of what a beet can be, introducing new exploration opportunities, ”says Douglas.
Some plants can have the wrong type of flavor. With kale, for example, while its green leaf is nutritious, its potent flavor may turn off some.
Baker and his team at Pairwise are working on a sweeter plant with a milder flavor.
“Kale is very nutritious, but people don’t like to eat it. So we used genetic engineering to produce leafy greens that have better nutrition, but taste like the lettuce we’re used to.” , he said.
In the case of kale, the strong flavor is considered a disadvantageBut overall, taste tends to go hand in hand with nutrition.
“Growing for flavor means cultivating for delicacies; it means growing for nutrition because most of the time when you select a complex flavor it is also based on nutrient density, ”says Douglas.
“It’s about cultivating with organic systems, with a type of agriculture whose objective is to obtain the best possible flavor and greater diversity.
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