primitives discuss Big Tomato

[BattleHymn]

It looks like a slow night at the DUmp.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018781513

Thu Jul 16, 2015, 05:18 PM
Star Member Agschmid (16,089 posts)

This Is the Perfect Tomato... But supermarkets refuse to sell it.

[picture of some tomatoes]


Tomato lovers, rejoice, for science has achieved the impossible: the perfect supermarket tomato. The Garden Gem won’t bruise during shipping, it resists many of the major diseases that regularly decimate tomato crops, and it is a flesh-producing powerhouse, turning out up to 22 pounds of tomatoes per plant, which is as productive as the best modern cultivars.

But there is one aspect in which the Garden Gem is very different from every other supermarket tomato: flavor. It actually has it. Lots. More than 500 sensory panelists at the University of Florida have declared it among the very best tomatoes they have tested.

Tomato lovers, stop rejoicing. Because you will not find the perfect supermarket tomato in any supermarket. Not now, and perhaps not ever. It’s not because the Garden Gem is a genetically modified organism—it was bred the same way tomatoes have been bred for thousands of years. It’s not because some multinational owns the patent and won’t release it in the U.S. (which, unfortunately, is the case with a superb British potato called the Mayan Gold). It’s because Big Tomato doesn’t care about flavor. Tomato farmers don’t care. Tomato packers don’t care. And supermarkets don’t care.

When it comes to flavor, the tomato industry is broken. And not even the Garden Gem appears able to fix it.

Big Tomato doesn't care about us!

Thu Jul 16, 2015, 06:50 PM
KamaAina (64,559 posts)
2. Somebody out here needs to grow them.

Organically, if possible.

Who will rid us of this meddlesome Big Tomato?

Thu Jul 16, 2015, 06:54 PM
magical thyme (11,477 posts)
3. gardeners can get the seeds through University of Florida

http://hos.ufl.edu/kleeweb/newcultivars.html

apparently it's "parent" is an heirloom. Think I'll go for the heirloom instead.

google is my friend

Just another primitive that hasn't figured out there is a difference between its and it's.

Fri Jul 17, 2015, 05:58 PM
Star Member Major Nikon (18,544 posts)
6. That's the difference between American and overseas markets

American consumers don't care about quality. Price is the only thing that really matters. It's not just tomatoes, it's everything. The result is that the stuff that really is good tends to be much more expensive because the sales volume is so low.

[98ZJUSMC]

It’s because Big Tomato doesn’t care about flavor. Tomato farmers don’t care. Tomato packers don’t care. And supermarkets don’t care.

When it comes to flavor, the tomato industry is broken. And not even the Garden Gem appears able to fix it.

[franksolich]

Yeah, this:

Major Nikon (18,544 posts)       Fri Jul 17, 2015, 05:58 PM

6. That's the difference between American and overseas markets

American consumers don't care about quality. Price is the only thing that really matters. It's not just tomatoes, it's everything. The result is that the stuff that really is good tends to be much more expensive because the sales volume is so low.

The major primitive's got to work on his fellow primitives about this.

One's grown deaf--if one already hasn't been--to the constant primitive mantra, "cheap goods cheap goods cheap goods cheap goods cheap goods....."

Nearly all of them chant that, to one extent or another.

But on the other hand, they don't object to expensive government.

[ChuckJ]

Major Nikon (18,544 posts)       Fri Jul 17, 2015, 05:58 PM

6. That's the difference between American and overseas markets

American consumers don't care about quality. Price is the only thing that really matters. It's not just tomatoes, it's everything. The result is that the stuff that really is good tends to be much more expensive because the sales volume is so low.

Based on the last two presidential elections American consumers apparently don't care about the quality of government. In other areas the consumers do care about quality, but for those of us who have to work for a living instead of sucking from the teat of Uncle Sam we have to take into account the price. After all, we're having to support ourselves and a large number of the lib voters with what we earn.

As for the bolded, sometimes the stuff that is really good is more expensive because it takes extra knowledge, effort, care, and materials to make it really good.
In other cases stuff that is really NOT good is much more expensive because unions are involved.

[franksolich]

It looks like a slow night at the DUmp.

Man, you are s-o-o-o-o-o-o-o right about that.

The primitives must be suffering from the lazy germ or something, not being nearly as productive as they usually are.

[Carl]

Store tomatoes are tasteless but for a reason,they are picked green and artificially ripened due to the travel time to market.
These urban slugs at the DUmp don`t understand what living in the cities denies them.

[franksolich]

Store tomatoes are tasteless but for a reason,they are picked green and artificially ripened due to the travel time to market.

These urban slugs at the DUmp don`t understand what living in the cities denies them.

With so many in the world suffering from hunger and even famine, it's hypocritical for the primitives to whine about the quality of our food; they should be down on bended knee thanking God they have food at all, when many don't.

The primitives allege that they care for humanity.  It'd be nice if they'd show it once in a while.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Jeez, again, the DUmmies over analyze everything.  In the fertile soil of the Midwest, tomatoes grow wonderfully.  Both sides of my family always grew their own.  My mom still does.

Problem is keeping the rabbits away.

[ChuckJ]

Jeez, again, the DUmmies over analyze everything.  In the fertile soil of the Midwest, tomatoes grow wonderfully.  Both sides of my family always grew their own.  My mom still does.

Problem is keeping the rabbits away.

Bunnies you say? Have you thought about printing up maps to Ptarmy's house and dropping them around the tomato plants?

[I_B_Perky]

Thu Jul 16, 2015, 05:18 PM
Star Member Agschmid (16,089 posts)

This Is the Perfect Tomato... But supermarkets refuse to sell it.

[picture of some tomatoes]


Tomato lovers, rejoice, for science has achieved the impossible: the perfect supermarket tomato. The Garden Gem won’t bruise during shipping, it resists many of the major diseases that regularly decimate tomato crops, and it is a flesh-producing powerhouse, turning out up to 22 pounds of tomatoes per plant, which is as productive as the best modern cultivars.

But there is one aspect in which the Garden Gem is very different from every other supermarket tomato: flavor. It actually has it. Lots. More than 500 sensory panelists at the University of Florida have declared it among the very best tomatoes they have tested.

Tomato lovers, stop rejoicing. Because you will not find the perfect supermarket tomato in any supermarket. Not now, and perhaps not ever. It’s not because the Garden Gem is a genetically modified organism—it was bred the same way tomatoes have been bred for thousands of years. It’s not because some multinational owns the patent and won’t release it in the U.S. (which, unfortunately, is the case with a superb British potato called the Mayan Gold). It’s because Big Tomato doesn’t care about flavor. Tomato farmers don’t care. Tomato packers don’t care. And supermarkets don’t care.

When it comes to flavor, the tomato industry is broken. And not even the Garden Gem appears able to fix it.

Oh for crying out loud dummie. Either grow your own or go to a farmers market.  'Maters are easy to grow. Plant, water, stake when they get tall enough and in 2 to 4 months, depending upon the kind of 'mater, viola! You got 'maters.

I swear the dummies would bitch if someone gave them a million dollars.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Bunnies you say? Have you thought about printing up maps to Ptarmy's house and dropping them around the tomato plants?

Bless her heart, but my late grandma used to sit on her back patio with a beebee gun & shoot at rabbits that would eat her lettuce, tomatoes, pepper plants, etc.

[diesel driver]

Jeez, again, the DUmmies over analyze everything.  In the fertile soil of the Midwest, tomatoes grow wonderfully.  Both sides of my family always grew their own.  My mom still does.

Problem is keeping the rabbits away.

Rabbits, groundhogs, and skunks around here.  I string an electric fence wire about 3-4 inches off the ground around my garden.  Keeps the small critters away.  If deer become a problem, a second wire about 2 feet off the ground quickly solves that problem.

The cheaper "constant on" fence chargers work best. 

[SVPete]

 

Aw, geez, not this @#$% again!

Big pharma and doctors have suppressed laetrile, nutrition, name of miracle cure here because they would lose money.

GM and Big Oil suppressed the electric car because they would lose money.

The only factoid in the tripe quoted in the OP is that supermarket tomatoes are crappy. But the explanation is too mundane to be satisfying to any conspiracy-theory-driven idiot.

If one were to wander into a random tomato field in the Sacramento, Salinas, or San Joaquin Valley and picked a ripe tomato, it would be delicious. The problem is not with the varieties being grown, but with how tomatoes make their way to the supermarket. First of all, vine-ripened tomatoes are not sent to the supermarket, because they would be rotten by the time they got there. What are picked to be sent the the supermarket are "pinks" - not yet ripe - that ripen some in the week or two it takes to get from the field to the warehouse, and out to individual stores. That, not the varieties being grown, is the reason supermarket tomatoes are crappy. BTW, my Dad was a farmer; he and his friends grew, among other things ... tomatoes!

So, what can one do to get better tomatoes? Grow your own, and you don't have to seek out some magical unobtanium variety. Go to a farmers' market where growers bring freshly picked produce directly to consumers. Find a market that has locally grown produce (even if it's a "supermarket"). Some supermarkets sell clusters of on-vine tomatoes, and these are pretty tasty as well.

The idea that dozens of seed companies, dozens of supermarket chains and thousands (or tens of thousands) of farmers are in some grand conspiracy to sell mediocre tomatoes and suppress tasty tomatoes is not intelligent enough to be moronic! Almost as moronic as the idea that those same seed companies, supermarkets and farmers are knowingly/intentionally poisoning their customers for fun and profit, with "organic" produce and meats being the solution!

[BattleHymn]

The only factoid in the tripe quoted in the OP is that supermarket tomatoes are crappy. But the explanation is too mundane to be satisfying to any conspiracy-theory-driven idiot.

It's the same "conspiracy" that's been going on for a long time.  It's been awhile but I believe E.P. Roe discussed it in his book, Success With Small Fruits (1881), in regards to Big Strawberry at the time.  DUmmies always think they've stumbled on something new, the latest, the cutting edgest of things.

[edit]
 
In case the grasswipe primitive comes sniffing around this thread, yes, my copy of the aforementioned antiquarian book is indeed an 1881 copy.  I got it for 25 cents at a flea market.

[diesel driver]

Truth be known, when I read the title of this tread, I thought it was going to be about Teresa Heinz Kerry, her ketchup empire, and her DUmbass husband, John F'n Kerry (who served in Vietnam).