Bananas turning brown is a natural process that occurs over time as the fruit overripens and produces too much ethylene. The turning of yellow pigments to brown is called enzymatic browning and is aided by high amounts of ethylene.
While there have been no known health issues arising from eating bananas that have turned brown, they taste too sweet and turn moldy and start to smell unpleasant soon enough.
Tropic, an agricultural-biotechnology company from the United Kingdom (UK), claims to have solved this issue. They have created a variety of bananas using gene editing technology to develop disease-resistant bananas that don’t turn brown and can also solve the Panama disease problem, Interesting Engineering reported.
Tropic’s “non-browning” bananas have also received the go-ahead from the Philippines Department of Agriculture, which has a rigorous gene editing regulatory determination process, said the company in a statement.
Related on the SLP
The statement further said that Tropic’s non-browning bananas could potentially reduce food waste and CO2 emissions by over 25 percent, given that over 60 percent of the exported bananas become diseased or go to waste before reaching the consumer. The gene-edited bananas could support reducing greenhouse emissions equivalent to removing 2 million passenger vehicles from the road each year.
