The Mod Squad

By Carol Cruzan Morton, Women’s Health

Wild new fruits and veggies are arriving at a supermarket near you. Should you bite?

Purple carrots. Orange cauliflower. Scarlet corn. In labs around the country, agricultural scientists are developing eye-popping new versions of your favorite produce. Some vegetables are being bred for higher levels of antioxidants, which give plants their bright colors and may deliver bigger health benefits. Melons are being tweaked for thinner rinds and juicier flavor, and mandarin oranges persuaded to grow without seeds. There's even a flavor-infused apple that tastes like a grape. And this is just the beginning.

Why mess with Mother Nature? Part of the answer is capitalism. The agricultural arm of the food industry wants consumers to buy more produce. But this is one economic objective that could have a positive impact on our health. From helping boost our immune systems to making it easier to keep off excess pounds, the perks of eating our vegetables aren't exactly news. And yet one-third of our daily vegetable intake comes from just two sources: iceberg lettuce and potatoes. When you consider that most potatoes are polished off in the form of French fries or potato chips, Americans are barely eating any vegetables at all. Even with fruit, we rarely venture out of our comfort zone: Half the typical consumer's daily servings come from just six sources, including — surprise — apples, oranges, and bananas. Any way you slice it, we're failing to eat the wide variety of produce recommended by the USDA.

That's exactly why nutritionists love the idea of sexier produce. "If new flavors and types encourage people to increase their intake and variety, that's a good thing," says Bernadette Latson, director of the clinical nutrition program at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Hot pink grapefruit and grapes the size of bowling balls are still a long way off, but thanks to recent breakthroughs in crossbreeding, enticing new creations are cropping up all over.

Candy Bars vs. Bland Tomatoes

Our crisper drawers and fruit bowls are empty for two reasons. The first is taste. Take the tomato, for instance. Each American eats about 18pounds of the red orbs a year, and 9 out of 10 households buy them.

Yet according to industry research, of all mainstream fruits and vegetables on the market, consumers are most dissatisfied with tomatoes. The problem is their lack of taste, says Anne Burt, spokesperson for Syngenta, the world's second-largest vegetable seed company and proud parent of the new, tastier, brown Rosso Bruno trademark tomato, a cross between several wild and domestic varieties.

The reason tomatoes and many other fruits and vegetables lack flavor is simple: The industrial farms that supply supermarket chains have selected and bred fruit for toughness and disease resistance, not deliciousness. The chalky apple in your cart ended up there because it's resilient enough to be harvested by machines, transported long distances, and stacked on shelves for weeks without bruising, rotting, or withering. The new challenge for science is to mastermind produce that will take a beating and deliver more taste.