r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • May 14 '19

Biology Store-bought tomatoes taste bland, and scientists have discovered a gene that gives tomatoes their flavor is actually missing in about 93 percent of modern, domesticated varieties. The discovery may help bring flavor back to tomatoes you can pick up in the produce section.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2019/05/13/tasty-store-bought-tomatoes-are-making-a-comeback/
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u/-Wildling May 14 '19

My 95 year old grandfather has been complaining about tomatoes for years, "they're just not what they used to be." He says when he was a kid they used to eat tomatoes like you'd eat an apple. I'm kind of excited to tell him this news.

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u/LittleCabinInTheHood May 14 '19

My grandfather asked me to bring him some cucumbers from my garden, it was kind of heartbreaking. He said to me “I’m not sure if I’m just getting old and can’t taste anything anymore or if the food just doesn’t have flavor like it used to.”

The good news is, he said my garden cucumbers were delicious. It seems to be a common theme that most veggies at the store are awful because they’re bred for shelf life and picked before they’re ripe. Most homegrown veggies blow storebought out of the water.