Let me take a moment, dear reader, to sing the praises of grape seeds. According to the Journal of Medicinal Food, grape seeds contain lipid, protein, carbohydrates, and Alton Brown’s favorite word: “polyphenols.” Grape seed extract contains a powerful antioxidant that protects the body from premature aging, disease, and decay. Extensive research shows that this is due to “its antioxidant effect to bond with collagen, promoting youthful skin, cell health, elasticity, and flexibility.”
Still, many people prefer seedless grapes over the regular kind. Let’s face it: grape seeds are inconvenient. No one likes to spit out grape seeds, after all, because it’s messy and an accidentally chewed grape seed is bitter, somewhat ruining the sweet, delicious flavor.
It turns out grapes don’t need seeds to reproduce. As long as you are not concerned about breeding, you can create new grape vines through cuttings. Commercial cultivators get seedless grapes from three sources, Thompson Seedless, Russian Seedless, and Black Monukka — which, let’s be frank, sounds like a supervillain name.
It’s comforting to know that I am not the only person who thinks about these things. The same thoughts seem to have crossed the sugar-fevered mind of Corey Lewis (or, as he likes to sign his comics, “Coreyyy Lewis”), who seems to have a hidden agenda against the polyphenol-rich goodness of grape seeds. For you see, in his anime-inspired webcomic Seedless, it is the ones with the grape seeds who are cast as supervillians and the seedless grapes who are the heroes.
