Two years ago (almost exactly to the date!), I wrote about anthocyanin-rich purple tomatoes. I can’t locate the stories I linked to anymore, but at the time, Oregon State University researchers were still perfecting the breed of red-purple tomato that is rich in both lycopene (red pigment) and anthocyanin (purple pigment).
So it comes as a surprise reading about genetically modified purple tomatoes on BBC News (original press release from John Innes Center). Apparently an entirely different group of scientists have created the tomatoes by incorporating genes from the snapdragon flower, which is high in anthocyanin. The result is a …read more

What’s up for breakfast today? Make habit of eating whole-grain breakfast cereals daily and you can reduce your risk of heart failure by up to 28%!
The analysis shows that those who ate a whole-grain breakfast cereal seven or more times per week were less likely (by 28 percent) to develop heart failure over the course of the study than those who never ate such cereal. The risk of heart failure decreased by 22 percent in those who ate a whole-grain breakfast cereal from two to six times per week and by 14 percent in those who ate a …read more

During the height of the Football World Cup, I succumbed to the fad and bought fan items, including tomatoes. Those tomatoes on the left are supposed to represent the colors of the host country’s –Gemany’s– flag: black, red and gold. The black, though, didn’t really look black… more like deep purple.
Now I am not sure how these tomatoes came out to be looking so, but it comes to me as a surprise that over in Oregon, scientists are still on a race to introduce the purple tomato into the market. No, not just as a novelty item, but as a …read more

Muscle pains from too much exercise? Cherry juice might help.
The researchers found that the weakening of the elbow flexion strength in the cherry group was significantly lower than the placebo group. The strength loss after four days, tested on an arm curl bench, was only four per cent for the cherry juice group, but was 22 per cent for the placebo group.
Volunteers who were taking tart cherry juice also reported less muscle pains. The researchers attribute this positive effect of tart cherry juice on the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties of the flavonoids and athocyanins present in tart cherry juice. Tart …read more