Tech received a National Science Foundation grant to buy more sophisticated equipment, a helium-powered system that Peffley uses in her research. Some people don't want scientists disturbing their food chain, yet they already are buying fruits and vegetables that have been engineered with traits consumers like. Breeding of varieties of plants is how today's vegetables came about. Today's corn was modified in the 1950s with a bacteria that kills larvae and eliminates the need to spray, she said. The future Peffley and her students are exploring ways to increase the level of quercetin in the vegetables.
Red onions have the most.
Yellow onions have some amounts of it, but white onions are almost quercetin free, she said. Kevin Lombard, a master's program student from Fort Worth, is looking at the practical aspects of quercetin in the kitchen. He was checking which preparation methods might increase the concentration of quercetin and which might diminish it. Peffley said the level of funding for quercetin research will determine how far scientists can go and how quickly. Peffley has a couple of varieties of onion seeds that will be released by 2004.