The Engineered Apple: por que as maçãs do supermercado são todas iguais (B2)
Walk into any supermarket and you will find apples that look almost identical: glossy, deep red and perfectly round. That uniformity is not an accident. Over the past century, growers have narrowed their attention to a handful of varieties that travel well, resist bruising and survive months in cold storage. Flavour, curiously, was rarely the deciding factor. Thousands of older varieties still exist in specialist orchards, some tasting faintly of aniseed or pear, but they rarely reach a shelf because they ripen unevenly or mark too easily. Some researchers now argue that this narrowing is a quiet risk: a crop grown from a small genetic pool is more exposed to new diseases. The apple, in other words, has been engineered less for the person eating it than for the lorry carrying it.
Fonte: English for ALL (texto original).
Nesse texto, o autor argumenta que a aparência uniforme das maçãs vendidas nos supermercados
- A) decorre da preferência dos consumidores por variedades de sabor mais intenso.
- B) resulta de critérios de transporte e conservação, e não do sabor da fruta.
- C) foi obtida por pomares especializados que resgataram variedades antigas.
- D) mostra que o cultivo em larga escala eliminou o risco de novas doenças.
- E) reflete um esforço dos produtores para ampliar o número de variedades disponíveis.