You can think of it what you want, but you can’t downplay it – the avocado. No hip city café has a menu without fruit. For many, it has become the epitome of modern, healthy nutrition; after all, avocados contain many important nutrients, especially unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids. This earned the berry from South America the nickname superfood.
However, the avocado doesn’t come without a hitch. Critics complain that the fruit is bad for the climate and not very sustainable. The increased demand is leading to monocultures in the main growing areas in South America, they require far too much water to ripen and they have to travel a long way until they arrive in Germany. Avocado lovers, on the other hand, have completely different worries: if you miss the right moment to eat them, their flesh quickly becomes mushy and turns an unappetizing brown. This should be over now. Scientists at the University of California Riverside (UCR) have recognized the seriousness of the problem and have been working on an optimized variant for decades – with success.
The new variety with the sonorous name Luna UCR. Its flavor is similar to the popular Hass avocado, but tastes more “floral” and the texture is creamier, Times Magazine quotes Mary Lu Arpaia, a horticulturist at UCR, as saying. That alone doesn’t make it special – but its shell does. In the future, you should be able to tell at a glance whether the fruit is ripe or not. Accordingly, it turns from emerald green to dark black as soon as it has reached the perfect level of ripeness for consumption. This makes the Luna UCR the most user-friendly avocado ever.
However, according to the research team, Avocado 2.0 has many more advantages. Their cultivation is said to be easier and more environmentally friendly than that of the Hass avocado. The trees are just as productive, but smaller. Not only do they require less space, harvesting is also easier. Can it also get by with less water and electricity? “Possibly” say the scientists and keep a low profile. Consumers shouldn’t burst into euphoria at the news anyway; it will be a few years before the Super Avocado is available to buy in stores.
Those: UCR, Time Magazine, Standardmedia
