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Gene-edited non-browning banana could cut food waste
- whoitwas 2y agoThey slowed the ripening process. It does turn brown, just slower. Clickbait is clickbait.
- giarc 2y agoI'd disagree. Title is appropriate "could cut food waste" is very true and pretty mild. A clickbait title would be "Gene-edited non-browning bananas will solve food waste problem"
- whoitwas 2y agoIt's mild click bait. They aren't slamming hunger in the nuts, my point is the banana turns brown. It's not "non-browning".
- jmclnx 2y agoWhat, no more banana bread :(
- CaffeineLD50 2y agoIndeed. Better food management fixes it without crispr.
- aitchnyu 2y agoCuisine is what happened when people wanted their food to last.
- karmakaze 2y agoNo problem, someone will make a banana browning machine for the purpose.
- rrr_oh_man 2y agoFor a small monthly subscription it will brown¹ your bananas. ¹ Final color of banana may not actually be brown.
- magnetowasright 2y agoJuicero 2.0: banana browning edition, coming soon
- vacuity 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox Food waste will not be addressed properly without cultural shifts. Granted, certain technological improvements may prompt them, but that's a bit backwards of a problem solving method.
- cjbgkagh 2y agoI wonder if things like tipping culture will encourage people to eat at home and be more mindful about their consumption. I hate being extorted for 25% tips and then told if I can’t afford the 25% then I shouldn’t be eating out. Kind of how the hatred of dealing with printer companies and their extortionist ink prices accelerated the shift to paperless. So maybe we’ll get to a better state, perhaps not through the means we expected.
- rwyinuse 2y agoI bet current US government's economic policies will be even more effective at reducing food waste. Food waste will be radically reduced when the prices skyrocket, and the masses can barely afford their groceries, let alone eating out. Tariffs combined with deportations of agricultural labor will likely lead to that outcome.
- pipe2devnull 2y ago25%? That’s so high. Most places in the USA I feel like 18-20% is the norm
- eigenspace 2y ago18-20% is already completely insane.
- marky1991 2y agoI was always taught that 15% is the standard and that's all I give.
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- vivzkestrel 2y agowhat are the long term effects of consuming such a banana daily?
- therealdkz 2y ago[dead]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ada1981 2y agoAvocados could use this.
- DonHopkins 2y agoGene-editing the Atheist's Nightmare is sacrilege! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4yBvvGi_2A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4yBvvGi_2A
- maury91 2y agoI have noticed that putting bananas in the fridge has a weird effect, the peel turns black like if it's outside, but the inside of the banana stays yellow and hard. It is very weird to peel a full black banana and find the inside normal without any browning
- morkalork 2y agoI see this all the time with bananas that go from green to brown without turning yellow, I always heard people blame the bananas getting too cold during shipping.
- hinkley 2y agoI lost it when I moved but we used to have a chart on the fridge that said which fruits you should or should not store together because they make each other ripen faster.
- staticautomatic 2y agoWhenever I see this happen, I like to say the bananas are sublimating.
- hinkley 2y agoWild assed guess: the cold slows down the chemical reactions in the flesh of the banana but cannot save the skin. Putting bananas in a bag makes them ripen faster, and a fridge is just a larger enclosed space.
- ourmandave 2y agoCounter argument: 40 Recipes for Ripe and Overripe Bananas https://www.forksoverknives.com/recipes/vegan-menus-collections/banana-recipes-ways-to-use-ripe-overripe-bananas/ https://www.forksoverknives.com/recipes/vegan-menus-collecti...
- atonse 2y agoYeah I get a little excited when I see an overripe banana in my house cuz I know my wife’s going to make banana nut bread and we’re gonna finish it all in an hour.
- owlstuffing 2y agoMost banana varieties actually taste best and last longer as they start to brown (ripen). The Cavendish—the dominant grocery store banana—is one of the few that turns mushy and unpleasant when it does.
- partiallypro 2y agoI think the Cavendish is better when slightly browned too, it's much sweater. Basically, not edible to me when it's just yellow. There is just a certain point when it stops being good.
- contingencies 2y agoBenefits of green: Lower sugar, higher in 5-HTP (potential mood enhancer, sleep enhancer, anti-anxiety). https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-794/5-htp https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-794/5-htp Benefits of brown: Sweeter, softer, better for making banana bread :) https://www.womensweeklyfood.com.au/recipe/baking/banana-bread-recipe-10338/ https://www.womensweeklyfood.com.au/recipe/baking/banana-bre...
- hulitu 2y agosweeter ? yes. Better ? no. It has no taste.
- throw-qqqqq 2y agoI prefer the cavendish a little green and unripe, but not so green it leaves my mouth dry from the tannins. When slightly green, it has a more veggie-like taste and not the super sweet and pungent banana smell/taste. I don’t like them when yellow/browning. Horses for courses I guess :)
- ofalkaed 2y ago>is one of the few that turns mushy and unpleasant when it does. Unpleasant for eating as a banana but quite pleasant for baking. I always buy more banana's than I can possibly eat before they get overripe, eat them raw until they get mushy then make banana bread with the remainder.
- crazygringo 2y agoThis article seems to be (intentionally?) confusing two different things. It seems to suggest this is about preventing unpeeled bananas from browning (yellow becomes spots becomes brown). Because it starts "Many of us have been guilty of binning a mushy, overripe banana" and continues "designed to have a longer shelf life". But the actual details are not that. It is merely: > said to remain fresh and yellow for 12 hours after being peeled Huh? First of all, I don't know if half-eaten bananas are a major problem with food waste. People usually eat a whole one. And who cares about the peel remaining yellow after it's peeled...? The flesh of a Cavendish banana is off-white, not yellow... It also says: > and is less susceptible to turning brown when bumped during harvesting and transportation. Is that a thing? Bananas are usually hard and green during these phases. If they're damaged so much they turn brown while unripe, I don't think I still want to eat them...
- ebiester 2y agoBut how does it taste? Does it sacrifice taste? Did anyone look at that?
- GoToRO 2y agoTrying to prevent food waste is silly. There is plenty of food where people are organized and no food where they are not. Agriculture needs stability, you need to be sure that after one year of work, you can reap the benefits of that work. This does not happens in places where any guy with an AK can come and steal your crop. It's like a comedian (sightly obese) said: "my Mom said there are hungry children in Africa so I should finish my food. So I did. Hope that helped" (paraphrasing). The irony is that it really doesn't help. The shortage in food is caused by other problems.
- o11c 2y agoTrying to prevent food waste is silly for another reason, too. "No food is wasted" is another way of saying "we are in the middle of a famine and people are eating everything they can." Food waste is a deliberate government policy decision to prevent famines in lean years. This is explicit for some products, but the benefit still exists for other products.
- wakawaka28 2y agoIn the interest of preventing famines, food can be stacked up when too much is produced. But even with that policy, it is unlikely that anyone could achieve zero waste without increasing the risks of shortages.
- beeforpork 2y agoThe brown ones are the most delicious. It's always the same with these novel foods -- they taste terrible, but no-one seems to care.
- DonaldFisk 2y ago> We’re eating today the same bananas as our grandparents were eating in the 1950s. No, we're not. Back in the 1950s our grandparents were eating Gros Michel bananas. Now, we're eating (by all accounts) inferior Cavendish bananas. https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/history-of-the-gros-michel-banana https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/history-of-the-gros-m...
- hinkley 2y agoBut the reasons we are eating these two bananas is that their skin colors align with the ripeness of the fruit in a way that the human brain thinks makes sense. And because we are monocropping, the same family of fungi are now successfully attacking the Cavendish that took out the Gros Michel. All the other species of bananas tend to turn brown almost immediately after or around the time they are fully ripe, and that makes them less commercially viable. So I would say that these gene splices are less interesting for the Cavendish directly and more interesting for bringing genetic diversity into the produce isle. We could have five kinds of banana like we have five kinds of pears. Which indirectly helps the Cavendish by slowing down the doom clock on banana plantations.
- lo_zamoyski 2y ago> in a way that the human brain thinks makes sense. Side note: Let us avoid pseudoscientific and pseudophilosophical language like this bit. It is suggestive of the homunculus fallacy, it misconstrues the nature of perception, and ignores the role of habit and cultural influences. It's also artificial, stylistically stodgy, and comes off as pretentious in a gauche, pop sci kind of way.
- hinkley 2y agoYou can have all the idealism you want in a place where farmers aren't bankrupted by not supplying what the market demands. The market demands bananas that are not brown when they are ripe.
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- namuol 2y agoThe short shelf life of things like bananas gave us wonderful foods like banana bread. It’s really not as big of a problem if we are just more responsible with the food we buy. But I say this mostly as a “yes, and…”
- tylerflick 2y agoBrowning is a feature not a bug.
- DoreenMichele 2y agoOther research teams are working on lettuce that wilts more slowly, bruise-resistant apples and potatoes and identifying the genes that determine how quickly grapes and blueberries shrivel. Pro tip: Buy your grapes, take them home, rinse them and promptly remove them from the vine. They will last up to a week in the fridge if the plant they grew on isn't desperately trying to stay alive longer with zero hope of survival by feeding on the grapes.
- hackernudes 2y agoAnecdote: I always keep my grapes on the vine unrinsed and they last more than a week.
- Etheryte 2y agoWhat do you mean you don't buy grapes and then just eat all of them in one go? Interesting tip though, I know a fair bit about plants and gardening, yet this idea never occurred to me.
- phito 2y agoThe grapes I buy stay good for more than a week in the fridge without doing anything to them.
- knowitnone 2y agoPro tip: you can grow your own grapes just by sticking a cutting in the ground. Super easy.
- aitchnyu 2y agoIME the rot setting in from broken skin wins over the effects of vine consuming the nutrients.
- seydor 2y agothis will reduce demand for artworks containing bananas and packing tape
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- iancmceachern 2y agoWe've done enough to bananas
- notorandit 2y agoTo reduce food waste, maybe we could turn to local season-linked food. If you live in NA, maybe pineapples, bananas and coconuts are not the best choice as they require special treatments to cope with transportation to reach your table. While maybe pears, apples and a number of berries would travel much less and require less treatments. Done really want to waste research resources just for yellower bananas?
- dragonmost 2y agoThe point is reducing waste without changing customer habits. People could also eat the brown banana but that's beside the point.
- ashoeafoot 2y agoDid they genewrite fungi resistance yet?
- betaby 2y agoModern world supermarket tomatoes are inedible, but looks nice and have a long shelf life. The same goal I suppose is for bananas now.