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For the record, I’m not a dirty hippy who believes organic 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 tomato, and the regular ones you’re going to find in the grocery store just ain’t.

photo credit: fuzzyslowmo

You see, tomatoes 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 tomato while it’s still green and hard, then gas it with ethelene. Ethelene is a “ripening agent” doesn’t actually ripen the tomatoes. 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 tomato and leave it for a day, come back and find the same tomato. If you do that with an organic tomato all you’ll have is a wet spot.

So knowing what grocery stores do to tomatoes, 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 tomatoes there. So the third option is to buy organic tomatoes. 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 tomatoes a smackdown.

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

photo credit: hiroohi

And I never apologize.