Super food or Frankenfood?

Food, glorious food. Last week I spent a few days in Sardinia, an island off the coast of Italy, and was blown away by the fine cuisine. Of course, Italian food is commonplace outside of Italy. I have eaten countless slices of pizza and pasta dishes in my life, but it all tasted quite different in its place of origin. Apart from the great cooking, what really struck me was the quality of the ingredients. Even a simple tomato had so much more flavour than what I am used to back home in London.

The perfect tomato? Genetically modifying tomatoes could produce a more resistant crop with a higher nutritional content.

It could all come down to locally-grown produce, but it made me wonder about food quality and how science could play a role in creating even better tasting food. Selective breeding and creating transgenic crops, which involves inserting a gene into one species from another species, are techniques that are already being used by scientists. Of course, many people have ethical concerns over messing with nature and nickname GM foods Frankenfoods. But could this result in even better-tasting food in the future?

When it comes to tomatoes, ‘quality’ means different things to different people. To a foodie like myself, it comes down to taste, but to a scientist it could have more to do with appearance or nutritional content. Actually, these criteria are all somewhat related as pigments that contribute to the nutritional value of the fruit, like pro-vitamin A and lycopene, also give tomatoes a brighter red colour. These are usually the tomatoes that have a richer flavour.

Soil quality also has a lot to do with how a tomato plant will turn out. The soil concentration of elements like potassium, calcium and magnesium, as well as the amount of organic matter and the pH are all important factors. A soil analysis can predict disorders such as yellow shoulder disorder, a fruit ripening problem that causes areas of discolouration under the skin of ripe tomatoes.