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Discoblog
« Genetic Mutant Athletes Immune to Steroid Tests
Bird-Watchers Beware—You’re Being Watched »

An Answer to (one of) the World’s Food Problems

Australia may save this suffering child
apple1.jpg

We’ve all witnessed the tragedy of apple oxidation: Take a crisp, refreshing bite from a ripe Granny Smith, set it down for a minute or two—and when you return the luscious white flesh has been tinted an offending shade of brown. Well, if you thought the Grapple marked the zenith of apple technology, Western Australia has another surprise: apples that don’t turn brown after they’ve been cut.

Sure, we’re in the midst of a global food crisis, with Costco cutting people off from rice while the US turned a fifth of its corn into biofuel—but what’s really on (some) people’s minds is what to do with those brown bits of apple. So Australian Agriculture and Food Minister Kim Chance has answered the prayers of millions by launching a new apple variety—branded the Enchanted™ apple—that can be exposed to air for hours before turning brown.

Chance hopes the Enchanted apples, with their, “delicate eating qualities of its Golden Delicious parent, but with a crisp and slightly tart style reminiscent of, but lighter than, its sibling, Cripps Pink (Pink Lady™),” will soon be creeping out apple eaters throughout Australia.

Image: jessicafm/Flickr

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May 1st, 2008 10:10 AM Tags: genetic engineering
by Lizzie Buchen in The Wide (& Strange) World of Animals | 3 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

  • JerryS

    does this mean apple juice won’t be brown?

    that kid is adorable.

  • http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/05/06/good-news-lazy-eaters-the-robotic-chewing-machine-has-arrived/ Good news, Lazy Eaters: The Robotic Chewing Machine Has Arrived | Discoblog | Discover Magazine

    [...] chewed up mass when they would have otherwise swallowed. The resulting mush was tested for texture, color, and volatile compound release, parameters which the group will soon use to optimize the device for [...]

  • http://www.proreview.net Kelly

    Why do you want to make apples that don’t turn brown after they’ve been cut? It’s in their nature.





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      Discoblog also includes the daily feature NCBI ROFL, in which two prone-to-distraction grad students post real scientific articles with funny subjects. Email your tips to ncbirofl [at] gmail.com. Follow the ROFL feed here.

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