Fruit

Every year, millions of eggs are rejected for sale in supermarkets, while millions of fruits and vegetables spoil before being eaten. Scientists are now addressing both problems, utilizing rejected eggs to create a coating that keeps produce fresh.

As most fans of the leathery fruit can attest, telling when an avocado is of perfect ripeness can be a guessing game, but a new testing technique could eliminate the margin for error by measuring the firmness of individual specimens using lasers.

According to some studies, people who are overweight or obese are at an increased risk of cognitive decline in old age. There may be hope, however, as a new study suggests that eating an avocado each day may help such folks maintain mental focus.

Researchers at EPFL have now reported a new step towards anti-aging medication. Human clinical trials of a fruit-derived compound showed promise in slowing mitochondrial aging in elderly patients, with no side effects found.

Fieldwork Robotics – a spinout company from the University of Plymouth in the UK – has announced the successful completion of early field trials of a raspberry-harvesting robot. If commercialized, the system could help make up for a shortage of human fruit pickers in the country.

It’s no secret that tomatoes plucked from the supermarket aisles just aren’t that tasty. To find taste genes that could be spliced back into commercial crops, researchers have complied a pan-genome of all cultivated and related wild tomato species, uncovering almost 5,000 previously-unknown genes.

​A team of researchers has been investigating ways to speed up our often long-winded crop domestication process using the latest CRISPR gene-editing technology. A study has outlined how a crop known as a groundcherry could be effectively modified to be better suited to large-scale farming.​

Found in the Amazon rainforest in Peru and Brazil, camu camu fruit has gained popularity around the world in recent years as the latest "superfood." Now a new study has found that an extract of camu camu can prevent mice fed a high-fat and high-sugar diet becoming obese.

​In the time since Keurig came out with its unique coffee brewer, we've seen the "single-serving pod" concept applied to things like tortillas, cold drinks, wine, and even full meals. Now, a group of California-based entrepreneurs has developed a Keurig-inspired smoothie maker.

We've already heard about experimental edible coatings made from silk, pectin and chitosan that increase the shelf life of fresh fruit and vegetables. Now, however, a coating made from waste plant material is being used on avocados sold in US supermarkets.

​If you've recently stopped smoking, then you ought to start eating more tomatoes and other fruits. According to a new study from Johns Hopkins University, doing so could help slow the decline of your lung function, by reversing some of the damage caused by smoking.

The East African Highland cooking banana is the major staple food in Uganda, but it has little in the way of micronutrients such as pro-vitamin A. Prof. James Dale decided to do something about it, and over the past decade has created a vitamin A-rich "golden banana."