Fresh!
Fruits are perishable. They turn soft. They turn brown. They become moldy. Yup, fruits are perishable. Especially bananas.
But no more, said Gilad Gershon, chief executive of Tropic, a Norwich (UK)-based biotech company, thanks to whom we might be getting bananas that stay fresh for several hours post-peeling. Declared Gershon triumphantly:
No more slimy, brown bananas!”
Enzymic browning is the main culprit behind those “slimy, brown bananas.” Fresh fruit and vegetables normally keep enzymes trapped in their tissues. However, when the fruit is sliced, squashed, or gets spoiled with age, oxygen cooperates with those exposed enzymes and does a number on the fruit. Phenols in the fruit, aided by the enzyme phenolase, are converted into forms of melanin, which is brown in color (the same pigment as on the skin—hence my interest in this business).
The company has worked out how to target the genes responsible for production of the culprit enzyme. No foreign genetic material is introduced; only a precise change is engineered to an organism’s existing genes to block the enzymes, creating the super banana!
Added Gershon:
Our variety stays fresh for at least 12 hours after peeling and slicing, and after 24 hours displays 30 per cent less browning. The bananas have the same taste, smell, sweetness and texture, the same everything we know and love, except the flesh doesn’t go brown as quickly. That means you can add them to fruit salads and cut-fruit products, opening up a huge new market for bananas.”
His company, Tropic, already has the go-ahead to sell the bananas in the Philippines, Colombia, Honduras, the USA, and Canada.
Tropic is also working on another project aimed at slowing down the actual ripening of bananas, so they stay green longer.
Gershon explained:
Bananas are picked when they are green, very like tomatoes. What we’re doing is knocking out another set of genes responsible for the production of ethylene, that hastens the change of the peel color from green to yellow by breaking down chlorophyll. If bananas can stay greener for longer, you can harvest them later, ship them for longer, and reduce packaging and chilled transportation costs.”
That’s not all. This banana-crazy company is also working on developing bananas resistant to diseases which have already wiped out several varieties.
Eyal Maori, Tropic’s chief scientific officer and co-founder, said:
Bananas are the world’s most-loved fruit but are suffering from many challenges in terms of production and shipping globally. Bananas are sterile—they don’t produce seeds and can’t be bred or hybridized in the same way as an apple or orange. Our technology is ensuring that we can continue to enjoy bananas for generations to come. We’re innovating to produce bananas that can protect themselves naturally against these diseases, using their natural defense mechanisms to improve disease resistance and increase yield. We are making very specific and subtle changes to what is already within the banana DNA to bring about beneficial traits.”
Good fruit. That’s what we need! Plenty of it, and which don’t wither!
Blessing [upon] the person
who has not walked by the advice of the wicked,
οr in the path of sinners stood,
nor in the seat of scoffers sat.
But, instead, in the law of Yahweh [is] his delight,
and in His law he meditates day and night.
And he is like a tree
transplanted by canals of water,
which its fruit—it yields in its season,
and its foliage—it does not wither;
and [in] all he does, he succeeds.
Psalm 1:1–3
No slime. No mushiness. No brown. Just … good fruit!
SOURCE:Daily Mail
Abe Kuruvilla is the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and a dermatologist in private practice. His passion is to explore, explain, and exemplify preaching.