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Scientists Undertake Effort To Breed Great Tasting, High-Yield Tomato Crops

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- More than $2-billion worth of tomatoes are sold in the United States each year, but quantity doesn't necessarily mean quality.

As CBS2's Tracee Carrasco reported, there's an effort underway to make tastier tomatoes.

"This is an old variety of tomato that was commercial 100 years ago," biologist Harry Klee said.

Klee has been researching tomatoes and their disappearing flavor for more than two decades.

Over the years, tomato plants have been bred to be commercially viable -- big and hardy, but not necessarily tasty.

"There are thirty or more compounds that give us flavor in a tomato. Think of it as a symphony, and think of what would happen if I start removing instruments one by one," Klee said, "You wouldn't notice, then all of the sudden you get to a point where you've removed six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and you're like 'whoa, that doesn't sound the same."

But there is a way to make tomatoes taste better, Klee said.

"We go back and we say, this one have great flavor, this one has high yield, let's cross the two together and let's pick out the babies that have really high yield and the great flavor," Klee said.

Mark Shatzker wrote about food and flavor in 'The Dorito Effect.'

"The consumer plays a big role here. One of the things we need to do is tell supermarkets that we care about flavor and will pay a little bit more for it," he said.

If Klee has his way, we'll all be enjoying a sweeter, more flavorful fruit soon.

The researchers are sensitive to concerns over GMO food, and said they are not genetically engineering tomatoes.

They said they can grow the tastier tomatoes through a natural breeding process.

Klee hopes the method they've developed can be sued to improve the taste of other foods like blueberries, and strawberries.

The United States is the second largest tomato grower in the world, producing around 32-billion lbs a year.

 

 

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