Ever eat pumpkin or other winter squash seeds? They are both delicious and nutritious, roasted or just placed raw into foods before cooking. You can buy pumpkin seeds in small snack bags. The problem for many people is the coverings, which are challenging to bite off because there are so many of them, as the seeds may seem relatively small. Genetic engineering to increase the seed size could solve that problem, since genetic engineering of size is probably easier than a lot of other generic engineering goals. Instead of a pumpkin with a couple hundred or so small seeds, it could grow 5-10 large seeds. Or just one, as big as an avocado seed but a lot better tasting… delicious. Speaking of seed size as a critical factor, sunflower seeds present a similar situation. You can get packages of them in the supermarket as a snack, but the ones with the seeds still in their shells seem less popular because they are harder to eat. You have to tediously bite off the shells to get to the seed inside. They taste good once you get them out though. And you get a lot of hand and mouth activity per seed, slowing down the intake of calories and making them a nutritious and satisfying snack for dieters. Yet the sunflower seed market would almost certainly grow dramatically if the seeds were 10x larger or more. Imagine eating an enormous sunflower seed the size of an egg…hefting its weight in the palm of your hand…cracking off its shell to reveal the rich, tasty meat within…and finally sinking your teeth into it to savor its nutritious and distinctive flavor! Hmm. A future sunflower could produce a seed like that, if it wasn’t spending its energy growing dozens and dozens of smaller seeds instead, like current sunflowers.
Fruits form a ready target for genetic engineers. Fruit is healthy and has near-universal appeal. Even people who have never eaten fruit in their lives rapidly develop a taste for it (who are these people, you ask? “Babies are puzzled by fruit… . But within a day or two practically all of them decide they love it.” – Baby and child care icon Dr. Spock). To plant the seeds of some ideas for such babies and others who will become the next generation of genetic engineers, consider the following possibilities.
- Fruit transgenic hybrids that taste like apple and pear at the same time (pearapples?), or perhaps peach and cherry (peacherries?) together instead. Watermelons that taste like nectarines (nectarmelons). And so on and so forth. If you can dream up the flavor, size and texture, it will be possible.
- Fruit with calorie-free sweetness, instead of high sugar content. They could be engineered to contain aspartame (“Nutrasweet”), sucralose (“Splenda”), cyclamate, or benzoic sulfimide (saccharin) instead (or all four). This would taste good while lowering the caloric content of the fruit (and thus the metabolic cost to the plant of growing the fruit, so it could afford to grow more or bigger fruits).
- Fruit with a high alcohol content, enough to enhance the taste but not intoxicate those eating it. Fruit with M&M-sized lumps of chocolate in them. Fruit containing a little brandy and a chocolate lump or two, and at a price anyone could afford (or grow).
- Fruit that tastes like ice cream…whoops, not necessary, it already exists! Some varieties of durian fruit are likened to ice cream or custard. Others are quite strong in odor. Banned from the premises of some hotels, it is reputed to be the only fruit that tigers eat. Surely if nature can conjure something as remarkable as this heavy fruit, covered with spikes, genetic engineers could cook up the things in this list.
- Fruit with intense flavor. People love flavorful foods and some fruits are mild, currently, though some are quite strong (citrus, for example).
Next time: Black Salad Grows Better, Looks Funny
References
“Babies are puzzled by fruit…the first time they have it. But within a day or two practically all of them decide they love it”: B. Spock and M. B. Rothenberg, Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care, revised edition, 1985, Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-73965-4.
