Comment on Genetically modified purple tomatoes get green light to be sold in Australia

givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

• maniacalmanicmania@aussie.zone ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  From the article

  The tomatoes were bio-engineered for health and nutrition, he said. “You’re basically looking at a blueberry in tomato clothes.”

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  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I should have read the article, but the change is just pigments:

    The tomato has been modified to produce pigments called anthocyanins, which are found in blueberries and blackberries and thought to have antioxidant properties.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthocyanin

    They’re pumping up the sugar content, that’s the only change besides color, no health benefits:

    Although anthocyanins have been shown to have antioxidant properties in vitro,[49] there is no evidence for antioxidant effects in humans after consuming foods rich in anthocyanins.

    So yeah, the people who sell it said it was engineered for health and nutrition, but it’s just blue and pumped full of extra sugar bro

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    • maniacalmanicmania@aussie.zone ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Thanks for looking into it. I was being lazy.

      I’m gonna start a nasty rumour about purple tomatoes.

      A friend and I caught the end of a news broadcast one night in the early naughts. We both thought we heard the presenter announce the death of Peter Garrett. Before long we’d informed lots of friends of Garret’s passing. Disturbingly, the rumour starting coming back to us from people we hadn’t told. It was years before I heard a thing about Garrett and found out he was alive.

      That’s the kind of rumour I’m going to spread about purple tomatoes.

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      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I mean, you don’t need to spread rumours…

        Anthocyanin isn’t FDA approved as a food additive, so this company bioengineered it to have more “naturally” to get around FDA regulations to pump a fruit full of something no evidence shows has a health benefit and is just cranking up the sugar content.

        There’s absolutely no reason to make shit up, and using science would be more effective.

        The target demographic they’re going after by marketing it as a health food are going to be interested to find out it’s actually more unhealthy than normal tomatoes.

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• Longmactoppedup@aussie.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Supermarkets have already perfected the art of selling perfect looking tomatoes with absolutely zero taste.

  Home grown or nothing.

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• Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  That’s literally also why beets are red. They oroginally were white. Then someone accidentally grew some that turned red. They thought that was the coolest shit ever, and now beets are mostly red.

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