I thought this was really rather cool…

Scientists have developed purple tomatoes which they hope may be able to keep cancer at bay.

The fruit are rich in an antioxidant pigment called anthocyanin which is thought to have anti-cancer properties.

A team from the John Innes Centre, Norwich, created the tomatoes by incorporating genes from the snapdragon flower, which is high in anthocyanin.

The study, published in Nature Biotechnology, found mice who ate the tomatoes lived longer.

Anthocyanins, found in particularly high levels in berries such as blackberry, cranberry and chokeberry, have been shown to help significantly slow the growth of colon cancer cells.

Genetic engineering of food crops has its critics, to be sure – but this appears to be a perfectly benign (if not downright useful) application.  It’s kind of interesting to see the distinction between “functional foods” (i.e., processed foods fortified with health-promoting nutraceuticals) and “whole foods” blur in instances like this.  Tomatoes are already quite healthful…this could conceivably push them into “superfood” territory.

Admittedly, they’d look kinda strange in a sandwich or spaghetti sauce, but I guess I could get used to it.  ;-)