Never liked overripe bananas, they always ended up in the compost. This could help with waste, sure, but I still get sketchy vibes from all that genetic editing. Bananas have already been messed with a lot, but when food doesn’t rot or takes forever to go bad… yeah, I get suspicious.
The world’s most popular fruit grows less so when it gets brown and mushy. To extend shelf life and reduce food waste, scientists at U.K.-based biotech company Tropic introduced the first non-browning banana this year. The banana, made using precision gene editing techniques, stays fresh at least 12 hours after peeling and doesn’t brown as easily. CEO Gilad Gershon says they’re also working on bananas that stay greener longer and are resistant to a fungal disease wreaking havoc across plantations from Asia to Latin America.