I think we need to talk. I seem to recall being very specific that in the highly unlikely scenario that science and/or Mother Nature invented pink pineapples, I was to be notified immediately. And none of you bothered to tell me. I’m highly disappointed.
Not only did you not tell me they existed, it turns out that Del Monte has been developing pink pineapples since way back in 2005. This was before America had a black president. Yes, the world had pink pineapples before America had BarackO. Just imagine the wondrous things we can do before the first female president arrives!
While the pink’uns have existed since way back in 2005, they’ve only been approved by the FDA very recently. That means we can officially eat them!
Del Monte is the only one that produces them and they actually have a patent on the pink deliciousness. Apart from a few food aficionados (I’m not sure whether I hate the word or the fact that there’s no decent replacement for the word), no one has yet had the glorious privilege of eating a pink pineapple.
They’re essentially regular pineapples that were genetically modified to tone down the enzymes that turn lycopene into carotene. You might think that’s entirely irrelevant to its color, but people with larger degrees than mine claim that the carotene gives yellow pigment to the fruit, while lycopene gives a red or pink pigment. It’s the same thing that turns tomatoes red and watermelons pink.
While this might sound good in theory, there’s a huge downside to all of this: there’s no word yet about a retail arrival date. The only place where you can find a pink pineapple right now is on Instagram, and I’m pretty sure there’s no way to actually eat it from there.
Now that it’s been FDA-approved however, the odds are pretty good that it’ll see its way to the stores this year or next year. Let’s all have a pink 2018! Well, not literally, that’d be weird. Just the pineapples. May everything else be its regular color!
