Have you noticed the high apple juice content of not inexpensive drinks like cranberry cocktails, punches and more? Well, a fruit I always thought was relatively cheap is obviously too expensive an additive for food and drink manufacturers. Sometime in the future, your fruit juice drink may no longer be flavored with apples. This wonderful fruit may be replaced for flavor by a - want to guess?

A weed.

Apparently a Mediterranean wild shrub with a fruit-like aroma and an essential oil extract with an apple-like flavor has a great potential for flavoring drinks from juices to wines, beers, herbal teas and liqueurs. According to the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, researchers working on it at the University of Camerino praise its application "mainly as aroma and taste enhancer in food processing.” They see extracts from the plant could also be used “For enhancing the aroma or taste of foodstuffs, chewing gums, medicinal products and toothpastes.”

What impact this will have on apple farmers I hate to think. They already have a hard enough time making money from an inexpensive crop that has to conform to specific size and color before supermarkets will stock them.

But weeds - once grafted and crafted to develop into edible vegetables and acceptable flowers - now constitute progress. Apple farmers, you have been warned.

Posted on Wednesday 23rd September 2009 in Blog