When was mellow yellow made3/11/2023 ![]() The investigators used Gardenia jasminoides, an ornamental plant from traditional Chinese medicine that has small amounts of crocin and related compounds in the flowers. The strikingly yellow crocins come from the cleavage of carotenoids, and like all biochemical reactions is catalyzed – made fast enough – by the action of specific enzymes (carotenoid cleavage dioxygenases). The situation was ripe for a biotech solution, borrowing a bit of biochemistry from another species. In the plants, carotenoids protect chloroplasts, enabling photosynthesis.īut harvesting and processing hand-picked stigmas of Crocus sativa to get the saffron is labor intensive and the plant only grows in a few areas of the Mediterranean and Asia. We require these “phytonutrients” to activate vitamin A and for their antioxidant properties – a human body cannot synthesize them. The research appears in Plant Biotechnology Journal.Ĭarotenoids provide the classic orange color of carrots and the hues of many other vegetables as well as fruits and flowers. These approaches are more true to nature than previous work that produced the plant pigment for study in cells of E. Now, Salim Al-Babili and colleagues at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia have borrowed genes from a common gardenia plant to make the spice in cultured lemon lumps and leaves of a tobacco relative. So finding a way to recapitulate nature’s saffron more economically has long been a goal. Saffron is the most expensive spice and is challenging to make: a kilogram requires 150,000 to 200,000 flowers. ‘They call me Mellow Yellow, I’m the guy who can calm you down.’ Lennon and I used to look in the back of newspapers and pull out funny things and they’d end up in songs.” The lyrics are more about meditation than drug use, he said. Said Donovan, the title and refrain mean “Being mellow, laid-back, chilled out. Did mellow yellow refer to pot? LSD? Snorting roasted banana skins? None of the above, according to an article in Songfacts. To those of us of a certain age, the word “saffron” conjures up “mellow yellow,” a 1966 song by Donovan: The main pigment crocin may be useful as a neuroprotectant, an antidepressant, a sedative, and an antioxidant. It’s used to infuse meats, grains, salads, and even to color marshmallows molded into baby chick shapes for Easter. Popular for thousands of years, saffron comes today mostly from Iran. To cooks, saffron is a bright yellow spice derived from Crocus sativus flowers, aka “saffron crocus.” The dried red threads at the blooms’ centers are used to season and color foods. Biotechnology mass-produces valuable molecules from nature, from drugs to textiles to a jellyfish protein that lights up most anything a glowing green.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |