Can Genetic Sequencing Bring Back A Tastier Commercial Tomato?

As much as it’s totally illogical, it’s easy to get caught up in the concept of the “Good Ol’ Days.” Certain older relatives of mine reminisce about the days when kids could play out in the streets until dark and careen down winding roads on brakeless bikes, and watch good cowboys fight bad cowboys every Sunday night on their monochrome TV. Heck, as a member of the last generation to grow up sans internet I sometimes long for the days of answering machines and Super Nintendo. Of course, everyone’s Good Ol’ Days shifts when they hit middle age, and if anything these are probably better ol’ days than anything that’s come before us.

Apparently, there’s some truth to the Good Ol’ Days theory in an unusual area: the taste of tomatoes. The hybrid tomatoes found in most grocery stores have been selectively bred to give preference to their size and firmness for shipping purposes. But for the last several decades selection for flavor has slipped, resulting in large, firm, red fruits that sort of taste like eating water. Tomato flavor more or less drifted out of commercialized fruits, but has stayed constant in non-hybrid heirloom varieties. Consumers might consider heirloom tomatoes as less desirable, though: they’re typically softer and somewhat oddly shaped, and grow in an array of colors from deep apple red to green.

A team of researchers—whose research was published in the January 27^th issue of Science— has undertaken to restore tomato taste via genomic analysis. The group analyzed the flavor-associated chemicals in almost 400 varieties of hybrid, heirloom, and wild tomatoes, then evaluated some of the varieties using a consumer panel. The group identified 13 chemical compounds associated with “good” flavor and matched them with genetic sequences, or alleles.

The researchers set out to “understand and ultimately correct” the tomato taste deficiency, so the next step is to selectively breed tomatoes using molecular markers to try and move the tasty alleles back into the hybrid fruits. An individual desiring a tasty tomato sooner could simply wait until summer and buy a locally produced heirloom tomato, which has likely retained most of the tasty alleles. I’ll admit that I’ve personally used fresh tomatoes as little more than the buffer between the lettuce and bacon in a BLT, or as filler in a salad. But after researching this blog I’m inclined to give heirlooms a shot to see if I can tell the difference.

Image credit: See-ming Lee / CC BY-SA 2.0