Color me less than excited about this innovation in food technology - carbonated fruit and vegetables:

[From the National Association of Convenience Stores' news] Scientists have developed a technique for carbonating fruit that they hope will make taste buds tingle and encourage kids and adults to eat more fruit.

"We see great potential in this application and believe the technology can be used to elevate the food sensory experience for consumers," said Dr. Qingyue Ling, lead researcher of the technology at the Food Innovation Center at Oregon State University [Who, incidentally, are working on a project that is bound to go 'pear-shaped', in a good way]. "As such, we're currently working on applying the technology to vegetables--tomatoes, celery, cucumber--with the aim to enhance the flavors for salads and vegetable dishes.

"The carbon dioxide brings no extra flavor, but it can enhance flavor profiles in a variety of food products," added Ling. To carbonate the fruit, it is put into a pressurized chamber at a specific temperature determined by the type of fruit for a half hour to two hours. The fruit becomes carbonated via its contact with carbon dioxide, reports FoodNavigator.com.

"We carried out trials on several thousand people over the past three years, [and] almost 100 percent of children preferred the fizzy fruit and over 50 percent of adults," noted Ling. Researchers also are investigating the use of the fizzy technology on other foods, such as yogurt, canned foods and ice cream.

Fizzy Ice Cream?

I know of a cheap, old-fashioned natural way to put some fizz in your fruit: let it sit inside a sealed plastic bag in the bottom of your fridge for about a week or two. If you can ignore the occasional odd fermented smell, moldy spots, and the fruit or vegetables' disturbing tendency to collapse at first bite, this technique produces an acceptable "fizzy fruit" at a fraction of the price of the new technology.

Just kidding.

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