March 2021 – nonongblog

https://www.delish.com/food-news/a50771/pink-pineapples/

When we first heard about cotton candy grapes, we thought the internet was pranking our candy-loving hearts. How could such a magical fruit exist? To our shock they are very real—and we immediately set out to get our hands on a bushel. Now we’re intrigued by yet another strange fruit: the pink pineapple.

While it’s much lesser known than, say, purple potatoes and the aforementioned candy grapes, pink pineapples are definitely real. So much so that they even have their own patent under the fruit-producing giant Del Monte. (Because they’ve been genetically modified.)

In development since 2005, the fruit was only just given the Food and Drug Administration’s seal of approval this week, NBC News reports. So far, Del Monte is the only company to produce pink pineapples, growing them in Costa Rica.

Fittingly, they’re known as the Rosé (cute, huh?) and are made rose-colored by adding lycopene, the substance that gives tomatoes their ruby hue. What’s more, Del Monte claims the fruit is made sweeter from this addition, proposing a new label that reads “extra sweet pink flesh pineapple.”

2016-12-16

Before you get creeped out by the GMO label, keep in mind that the FDA has already given them its stamp of approval, explaining: The pineapples were simply “engineered to produce lower levels of the enzymes already in conventional pineapple that convert the pink pigment lycopene to the yellow pigment beta carotene. Lycopene is the pigment that makes tomatoes red and watermelons pink, so it is commonly and safely consumed.”

2017-05-25