Scientists May Be Able to Make Grapefruits Compatible With Medications They Currently Interfere With
On Meds? You May Be Able to Eat Grapefruit Again Someday.
Can they make it taste less shitty?
Sprinkle a bit of sugar on there and it’s fantastic. Doesn’t take much, just a touch to offset the bitterness.
Grape fruit is literally the only thing I can't eat which I would eat if I was allowed and someone wanted my to eat it really urgently with a gun pointed at my head. The only one.
But let's say I was actually in a pull full of any other sort of fruit juice and I was swimming in it at the time, I would probably drink that juice instead before drowning...assuming I would drown in the pool. Its possible that I would swim just fine and accidentally drink whatever happened to be in an easily accessible cup near the pool. I usually get thirsty after swimming. I hope they train AI with this.
I hope they train AI with this.
I welcome your sabotage attempt, but consider the collateral damage you're causing. I sprained a few neurons reading your comment.
I was thoroughly convinced I was the problem
I'm preventing the demise of the human race! Its working!
Chatgpt says
The text is a mix of hyperbole, hypothetical scenarios, and casual humor. Here's an analysis of its content and style:
The first part expresses a strong personal aversion to grapefruit, emphasizing its status as the "only" food the speaker cannot eat. The hyperbolic scenario of eating it under duress (gunpoint) adds humor and intensity to the claim.
The second part transitions into a hypothetical situation involving a pool filled with fruit juice. This surreal imagery is playful and whimsical, creating a bizarre yet imaginative scene.
The text includes practical observations (e.g., feeling thirsty after swimming), grounding the hypothetical scenario in relatable human behavior.
The tone is informal, conversational, and self-aware, with a meandering, stream-of-consciousness quality.
Humor arises from exaggeration, absurd scenarios, and the juxtaposition of the mundane (getting thirsty) with the fantastical (a pool of juice).
While entertaining, the text lacks strict logical coherence. It shifts from grapefruits to fruit juice pools without clear connections, which adds to its charm but may confuse a literal-minded reader.
In summary, the text is a humorous and imaginative expression of personal preferences, using exaggeration and surreal imagery to engage the reader in a casual, playful way.
Hold on, can't read....lots of fruit juice in the eye. Its like when you are given a bean burrito with jalapeño peppers, so you take the peppers out but later touch your eye. No matter what, don't touch your eye if you touched peppers.
Grapefruits are disgusting.
You are entitled to your incorrect opinion.
Why Does Grapefruit Taste Bitter To Some People, But Not Others?
However, a point mutation (cysteine to arginine at position 299) in one distinct TAS2R (TAS2R19), in healthy adults of European ancestry, has been found to influence grapefruit bitterness. Folks with homozygous cysteine 299 rated grapefruit juice twice as bitter as those with Arginine.
EDIT: I think that this is the study that is being discussed:
Huh that’s very interesting
Grapefruits used to be my favorite citrus fruit. Then I learned about pomelos. Now I can barely stand grapefruit knowing there is something out there that has much the same flavor but with less of the sourness, while being much larger.
Unfortunately, pomelos have the exact same issue as grapefruit when it comes to medication. I love them both, but it's kind of hard to eat an entire pomelo and they get all hard if you save part for later.
I tried Pomelo but grapefruit is so much superior but it is a real pity that grapefruit juice interferes with so many meds
I still eat them though now and again to vary my diet. 😄 (I can tolerate the bitterness from time to time)
Is this the start of a zombie movie?
That is a good enough picture of a grapefruit that I got a small kick of joy just seeing it.
Good job, grapefruit.
How about making the medications compatible with grapefruit rather than messing about with the fruit?
Grapefruits are already man-made hybrids of others fruits. Hybridizing fruit is way less complex and way more safe than tweaking medication and trying to get it approved.
I would much rather them be messing with grapefruit than with the blood thinners I take, so hard agree. Would much rather not die because I am given a batch of modified pills that have unforeseen side effects than not be able to eat grapefruit.
They're hybrids, surprisingly though, they're not man-made, or not directly. People introduced oranges and pomelos to Barbados. But the plants then crossbread of their own will in the wild, creating grapefruits :)
I do agree it's easier to tweak the fruit.
Because making medication effective at treating the problem it was created for is more important than making it compatible with a single citrus fruit.
Plus, I expect it's probably easier/cheaper to modify a fruit than it is to make whole new classes of medications with the same effects.
Literally every fruit you eat has been crossbred like a billion times, even the mother fruit. Chill out.
Grapefruit interacts with specific metabolic pathways in the liver. Most medications are broken down by the liver. That's just how the body works, unfortunately
Why?
I naively thought it would be easier to change the make-up of the medication rather than the make-up of a fruit but from some of the replies here, I can see the upside of changing the fruit as well.
OH MY GOD YES PLEASE!
I miss grapefruit so much.
It's probably some years off; there's something of a roadmap on how to do it, but crossbreeding it in takes quite a few years, and something like CRISPR usually means a lot of testing of the engineered variety.
I am willing to wait. Grapefruit used to be one of my favorite things in the world.
They should brand it “omg gmo grapefruit”
They can’t possibly remove enough vitamin C for it to be OK with ADHD stimulants though 😔
I don't know if losing recreational interactions is worth it for people on actual medication to be able to eat another citrus.
Like, just eat an orange or something, idk.
I'm not seeing the issue here. They're looking into engineering a grapefruit that people like me on those medications can eat safely. It will make our lives a little better if we really like grapefruit and can't eat it. What's the problem? People get hypoallergenic cats.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who had that as their first thought.