A Scientist's Quest For Perfect Broccoli 118
HonorPoncaCityDotCom writes "For all the wonders of fresh broccoli, in most parts of the country it is only available from local growers during the cooler weeks at either end of the growing season, nowhere near long enough to become a fixture in grocery stores or kitchens. But now Michael Moss writes in the NY Times that Thomas Bjorkman is out to change all that by creating a new version of the plant that can thrive in hot, steamy summers like those in New York, South Carolina or Iowa and is easy and inexpensive enough to grow in large volumes. And Bjorkman's quest doesn't stop there: His crucifer is also crisp, subtly sweet and utterly tender when eaten fresh-picked and aims to maximize the concentration of glucoraphanin, a mildly toxic compound used by plants to fight insects that in humans may stimulate our bodies' natural chemical defenses to aid in preventing cancer and warding off heart disease. The Eastern Broccoli Project's goal is to create a regional food network for an increasingly important and nutritious vegetable that may serve as a model network for other specialty crops to help shift American attitudes toward fruits and vegetables by increasing their allure and usefulness in cooking, while increasing their nutritional loads. 'If you've had really fresh broccoli, you know it's an entirely different thing,' says Bjorkman, a plant scientist at Cornell University. 'And if the health-policy goal is to vastly increase the consumption of broccoli, then we need a ready supply, at an attractive price.'"
Real scientists... (Score:5, Interesting)
... eat Romanesco broccoli [wikipedia.org].
Patent (Score:4, Interesting)
Broccoli is already patented by Monsanto.
We're not talking about a genetically mutilated Monsanto broccoli, but they patented open source broccoli.
http://www.realfarmacy.com/monsanto-patent-on-natural-broccoli-seeds/ [realfarmacy.com]
Broccoli, Supertasters, PTC, and the TAS2R38 gene (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not the bitter taste, it's the sulphurous, garbage dump like stink that some just don't seem to perceive.
Supertasters [wikipedia.org], approximately a quarter of the world's population, have the ability to taste PROP [wikipedia.org] and PTC [wikipedia.org], finding them incredibly bitter while the rest of the population cannot taste them at all. (Supertasters have other differences from non-supertasters, too, including a larger number of fungiform papillae on the surface of the tongue.)
Plants of the Brassica [wikipedia.org] family, which includes broccoli (as well as cabbage, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts) contain a compound similar to PTC. People who like broccoli are living in a genetic world supertasters can only dream of; even the smell of the Brassica family is immediately repulsive to supertasters. This is believed due to the genotypes they carry of the TAS2R38 gene [wikipedia.org], which codes for a bitter taste receptor.
Frankly, I don't think Dr. Bjorkman's work will be done unless he gets the PTC-related compounds out of broccoli.