Smells in Food May Signal Nutritional Value

阿走

Thursday, February 09, 2006

WASHINGTON — That fresh grassy smell wafting up from the newly sliced tomato may be its way of saying "I'm good for you."

Indeed, the odors from foods ranging from garlic and onions to ginger and strawberries may be nutritional signals that the human nose has learned to recognize.

"Studies of flavor preferences and aversions suggest that flavor perception may be linked to the nutritional or health value" of foods, researchers Stephen A. Goff and Harry J. Klee report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

However, they caution, domestication of many vegetables has not been kind to them, tending to favor qualities like color, shape, yield and disease resistance instead of flavor and nutrition.

Flavor is complex and uniquely challenging to plant breeders, they note, and as a result has not been a high priority.

Take the tomato, for instance.

Klee and Goff analyzed two types of tomato, the wild cerasiforme and the commercially grown Flora-Duke.

Except for one chemical that also affects color, the sugars, organic acids and volatile compounds associated with tomato flavor were reduced in the commercial product.