The Not-So-Forbidden Fruit

#TheDrive with Skrypt: British scientists have created a banana that ‘stays fresh for 24 hours after opening’

Fruit salads will never be the same again – thanks to scientists who have developed bananas that don’t go brown and mushy after being peeled.

Gilad Gershon, chief executive of Tropic, the Norwich-based biotech company behind the breakthrough said ‘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.’

The company has worked out how to target the genes responsible for production of an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase, which causes the browning, and disable them.

The technique is different to genetic modification as it makes precise changes to an organism’s existing genes without the introduction of foreign genetic material.

Tropic already has the go-ahead to sell the bananas in the Philippines, Colombia, Honduras, the USA and Canada.

Whether or not Namibia will experience this is yet to be determined but one thing is for sure; I was taught not to play with food as a kid. I prefer my food as organic as I can get them.

Listen to Megabytes on 99FM and hear how Tropic is trying to further enhance bananas:

Tune into the 99FM stream for more.