Instead, scientists say, modern commercial tomatoes were consistently bred for other traits, including shelf life, firmness and disease resistance. “It was just a slow, imperceptible degradation of flavor.”Determined to right this wrong through science, Klee has been studying the chemical origins of tomato flavor for 25 years. They identified about 60 chemicals that appear to play a significant role in tomato flavor. The results allowed them to determine the genes that code for the flavor-enhancing aroma compounds necessary for good tomato flavor. Also, his lab’s previous work has shown that tomatoes stop creating those all-important aroma compounds when they are chilled.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 26, 2017 23:42 UTC