Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren bog Obam Here. Fresh tomatoes pile high
Speaker 1: and grocery store produce sections twelve months out of the year,
Speaker 1: but for tomato aficionados they're only good for a short season,
Speaker 1: or maybe not ever. Grocery store tomatoes have long had
Speaker 1: a reputation for being bland, meally, too firm, tasteless, and dry.
Speaker 1: There are scientists working to save grocery store tomatoes, and
Speaker 1: not just by encouraging people to garden or shop at
Speaker 1: farmers markets. Through science and honestly good grocery store tomato
Speaker 1: maybe on the market within five years. We spoke with
Speaker 1: Harry Clee, professor of horticultural science at the University of Florida,
Speaker 1: who's putting his passion for tomatoes into the long work
Speaker 1: of developing a better tomato for the mass market. He said,
Speaker 1: we're not going to consider our program of success until
Speaker 1: all grocery store tomatoes taste good. According to Clee, the
Speaker 1: number one complaint about produce in America is the favor
Speaker 1: of grocery store tomatoes. It's a problem that's been around
Speaker 1: for decades. Clever members in n seven essay in the
Speaker 1: New Yorker about how hard it is to find truly ripe,
Speaker 1: fresh tomatoes. So how did tomatoes end up tasting so blah?
Speaker 1: The problem lies in the entire market chain. Clip points out.
Speaker 1: Farmers aren't paid on flavor. They're paid on pounds of
Speaker 1: tomatoes they put in a box. Growers will tell you
Speaker 1: they can't control flavor. What the market values motivates growers
Speaker 1: to prioritize fast growth, high yields, disease resistance, and a
Speaker 1: long shelf life. Breeders have been developing tomatoes in response
Speaker 1: to those qualities that growers are looking for. Tomatoes don't
Speaker 1: have to taste good for any of that to happen.
Speaker 1: Cli pointed out that the loss of flavor isn't intentional
Speaker 1: on anyone's part. It's just a side effect of the
Speaker 1: neglect of attention to flavor. He compares it to a symphony.
Speaker 1: If one instrument is missing, you probably wouldn't notice. If
Speaker 1: two or three instruments bow out, and experienced musician might notice.
Speaker 1: But if one by one instruments leave the orchestra, eventually
Speaker 1: you'll notice something's missing. And in the case of fruit
Speaker 1: like tomatoes, well, in Klee's words, flavor over fifty years
Speaker 1: has gone to hell. The growers who do get paid
Speaker 1: on flavor focus on local sales to customers who live
Speaker 1: nearby and provide repeat business both home cooks and restaurants.
Speaker 1: Those are the growers who can pick tomatoes once they've
Speaker 1: ripened on the vine, and they don't have to ship
Speaker 1: them far and risk damage. We also spoke with Julie Dawson,
Speaker 1: a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin Madison, who
Speaker 1: does tomato variety trials, including varieties from a number of
Speaker 1: different public and private sector breeders. Some varieties of the
Speaker 1: trials come from Seed Savers Exchange, an organization that's devoted
Speaker 1: to preserving America's diversity and food and garden plants by collecting, sharing,
Speaker 1: and saving seeds and by encouraging people to grow them.
Speaker 1: She said, we hope our trials help breeders develop varieties
Speaker 1: that have the flavor that make people want to buy
Speaker 1: and eat more. She explained that flavor can get bread
Speaker 1: out in any number of unexpected ways. For example, there's
Speaker 1: a gene that producers want because it makes tomatoes ripen
Speaker 1: uniformly across the whole fruit all at once, but it
Speaker 1: also changes the way sugars accumulate in the fruit, but
Speaker 1: she also said the bigger part of why they don't
Speaker 1: taste good is due to how people manage them, such
Speaker 1: as picking them green. A lot of the ripening on
Speaker 1: the plant creates sugars and volatile compounds that make the
Speaker 1: tomatoes taste good. They're easier to ship when they're under ripe,
Speaker 1: but they will never develop all of those flavors, and
Speaker 1: ripening tomatoes commercially with ethylene gas is no substitute for
Speaker 1: the work nature does on the vine. Dawson said, it
Speaker 1: just turns them red. You don't get all the volatiles
Speaker 1: and secondary compounds that make it smell like a tomato
Speaker 1: and taste good. So now clear and numerous horticultural scientists
Speaker 1: are working to bring flavor back, but growers and supermarkets
Speaker 1: still need the qualities of a modern tomato. Klie said
Speaker 1: breeding is now a balancing act because growers still want
Speaker 1: a good yield and disease resistance. We have to keep
Speaker 1: key pieces in. At the University of Florida, the Horticultural
Speaker 1: Science Department is growing over a hundred varieties of tomatoes
Speaker 1: and uses a tasting panel of over a hundred people
Speaker 1: to help identify what makes it tomato taste good. They've
Speaker 1: come up with a list of compounds that impact flavor.
Speaker 1: The tasting panel helps them identify what people like, and
Speaker 1: then they determine how much of each compound is in
Speaker 1: the tomatoes that get approval from the panel. The process
Speaker 1: produces a scientific recipe for a great tomato. Klie said,
Speaker 1: DNA sequencing has become cheap, so if sequenced the genomes
Speaker 1: of five hundred different varieties of tomatoes, they can identify
Speaker 1: jeans that make good tasting modern tomatoes, trace where those
Speaker 1: genes came from, and bring them back. It creates a
Speaker 1: breeding roadmap. Right now, Clean his team are working on
Speaker 1: nine different genes to put into modern tomatoes, creating fruit
Speaker 1: with the yield, disease resistance, and shelf life that growers
Speaker 1: and markets want, but the flavor the tomato lovers crave.
Speaker 1: But the challenge with creating better fruit and vegetables is
Speaker 1: that it takes time. In Florida, Clean his team can
Speaker 1: only grow two generations of tomatoes a year, but better
Speaker 1: tomatoes are on the horizon. Kali says tasting panels in
Speaker 1: summer of twenty nineteen will help them finalize a tomato
Speaker 1: that's got it all. Once that's done, the challenge is
Speaker 1: getting growers to take a chance on planting and selling them,
Speaker 1: and growers tend to adopt new plants conservatively, but the
Speaker 1: university is working with several commercial seed companies that want
Speaker 1: to be the first in the market with good tomatoes.
Speaker 1: Consumers have a role to play and getting better tomatoes
Speaker 1: to market to buy them, Kali said. Some people are
Speaker 1: willing to pay more for great flavor, but most people
Speaker 1: are price sensitive. If you pay little, you get what
Speaker 1: you pay for. People need to step up and pay
Speaker 1: for better tomatoes. If you've got a garden plot and
Speaker 1: you can't wait for some of the tomatoes developed at
Speaker 1: the University of Florida, you can get seeds that aren't
Speaker 1: on the market yet. You can donate ten dollars towards
Speaker 1: cles Genetic Tomato Research to receive packets of three varieties.
Speaker 1: Search online for the Clear Garden gem web page. That's
Speaker 1: k l e E. If you grow them, they would
Speaker 1: love to hear how they perform in your garden. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was written by Sean Chavis and produced by Tyler Clay.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is the production I Heart radio's How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of other tasty topics,
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