A Kiwi researcher laments that regulations make it pointless to work on GMO’s in New Zealand. He mentions a particular sad case in point: the obstacles to testing tearless onions. There is no reference to this in the trade-journal for this type of news, the Onion ((Compensated by their coverage of the new DNA test to reveal who is bald)). What to say? Perhaps there is nothing wrong with making onions tearless, but I feel it would be a loss. Not having rational objections, I search for a metaphysical answer. Something like Carlos Drummond de Andrade’s poem about an opposite case:
Mal do Século
Como se não bastasse o mundo de tristezas
entre céu e terra,
principalmente em terra,
vem o agrónomo, descobre
o vÃrus da tristeza nas laranjeiras.
My translation:
Times of Sorrow
As if there wasn’t enough sadness
between heaven and earth
particularly on earth
comes the agronomist, discovers
the sadness virus in the orange trees
Opening a food processor full of freshly diced onions is a hazard, but once you realize not to stick your face in it and let it out the fume hood, errr, window, it can be managed. The tearless onion will be appealing, and probably best coupled with important traits for the grower as well. But what would really get me going is for some intrepid geneticist to figure out how to eliminate that onion breath that shows up about an hour after enjoying just a hint of onions in a sandwich.
That’s an output trait you could really sink your teeth into!
@Inoculated Mind – I just worry about how you would get rid of the air-borne irritants without also getting rid of the essential flavour elements of a pungent onion. I’ve not eaten those sweet onions from Georgia — Vidalias, which require low sulphur soils to be really sweet — because I can’t see the point. If I want an onion as sweet as an apple, I’ll eat an apple.
My comment was tongue-in-cheek… I think onion breath comes hand in hand with some of the reasons why we enjoy onions.