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The Case For Organic Tomatoes

P1300032For the record, I’m not a dirty hippy who believes food is healthier. There isn’t much healthier about smearing your food with poop and keeping insects away from it with nothing stronger than bad language. I’m also not some second generation yuppy who thinks paying more means it’s better. Paying more means it costs more, that’s it. But I am someone who likes a good tasting , and the regular ones you’re going to find in the grocery store just ain’t.

Creative Commons License photo credit: fuzzyslowmo

You see, are naturally soft. Soft and velvety. This is awesome when you’re eating them, but terrible if you want to truck them somewhere. By the time you load them up, drive them 500 miles and drop them off all you have left is bruises, mush and stems. So transporters and grocery stores came up with a solution.

They pick a while it’s still green and hard, then gas it with ethelene. Ethelene is a “ripening agent” doesn’t actually ripen the . It just makes them turn red so they look ripe. So you essentially have a bright red softball that’s perfect for shipping and terrible for eating. You can actually set a dictionary on top of a store bought and leave it for a day, come back and find the same . If you do that with an all you’ll have is a wet spot.

So knowing what grocery stores do to , there are 3 ways you can still get a good one. Firstly, if you live in the right climate(and have a yard) you can grow your own. If you live in the wrong climate you can plant a little AeroGarden . Second you can go to farmers markets. This is my favorite actually, you can talk to the guy who grew the damn things. People won’t look you in the eyes and then sell you crap.

But this is a blog about eating better, easy. And if you were the kind of guy who went to farmers markets you’d already be buying your there. So the third option is to buy . They won’t be gassed like the regular ones, so if they’re red that means they’re actually ripe. Now you will pay more for these. They have to be bought locally(that means the store can’t buy them in bulk) and they will lose more during their short transport. But for convenience and flavor, they give regular store a smackdown.

In fact, I’m issuing you a challenge. Go buy an and a regular one and make a with each. If you honestly can’t tell the difference I will personally come to your house and apologize.

BLT sandwitch, the point, sheraton laguna guam

Creative Commons License photo credit: hiroohi

And I never apologize.

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10 Responses to “The Case For Organic Tomatoes”

  1. The Hidden Benefits of The Avocado Says:

    [...] planning on hauling them with you on vacation. But I’ve written before about the shenanigans produce shippers go through that makes food tough enough to truck. Unfortunately these processes make the food taste that way [...]

  2. fatbastardeats.com » Blog Archive » Tomato Recall 2008: EVERYBODY PANIC!!!!11!! Says:

    [...] tomatophobia in most people because they have no idea where their tomatoes come from. As I’ve discussed previously, most tomatoes are gassed into a false ripeness and shipped across country to the highest bidder. [...]

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  7. Rosalie Says:

    Between me and my husband we’ve been eating organic food for quite some time now and we feel much more healthy and energetic! We have also trimmed our tummies down quite a bit because of it.

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