Posted on 04/04/2017 4:44:54 PM PDT by vannrox
Ever wonder why most store-bought tomatoes are so tasteless? The answer (surprise, surprise) has to do with revenue: Tomato farmers care about yield, and the genetic variants associated with yield are not associated with tasty tomato flavors, a new study finds.
"Consumers complain that the modern tomato has little flavor. [It's] like a 'water bomb,'" said the study's co-principal investigator Sanwen Huang, the deputy director general at the Agricultural Genome Institute at Shenzhen at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
How can farmers ditch this "water bomb" and reinstate the rich, sweet flavor of the tomato? To find out, Huang and colleagues investigated which genes are associated with tomatoes' taste.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
I am even discovering that their are heirloom tomatoes with all the texture and color of the originals, but still no taste. Agribusiness can screw up anything.
Basically August and September are the tomato months. Grow them in your yard or buy at farm stands.
All our common produce sucks. Apples, pears, peaches. Everything is picked hard and never ripens or gains flavor.
One trip to Europe and their fresh fruit makes you realize how the robber barons here have screwed us over completely and sold us out for maximum profit. Our produce is often tasteless.
I have noticed this with the honeycrisp apple also. I understand it was a hybrid or engineered but they were the most delicious fruit I had ever eaten when I discovered them about six years ago. Fast forward a couple of years and they are now I. The market weighing in at 2 lbs an apple and all the awesome flavor GONE.
I believe a lot of it is indirectly due to the Farm Workers Union as led by Cesar Chavez. He organized California farmworkers into a union to get higher wages and better working conditions for what used to be called ‘stoop labor’. Boycotts of grapes, lettuce and tomatoes were big deals in the late 60s and 70s. And he beat the “greedy farmers” down and won!
But then technology raised its ugly head. Harvesting machines were developed that could basically shake the tomatoes off of the plant and harvest them without the need of more expensive labor. Only problem with that was that the tomatoes were damaged by the machines, tomatoes being thin-skinned and all. So researchers at agricultural universities created tomatoes that could withstand the rough handling. Only problem was they didn’t have much in the way of flavor. But, hey they’re affordable!
So, just like cotton, people doing an unskilled, crappy job demanded more money for their labor, machines were invented to do their jobs, and now they sit back and collect welfare. Perhaps a cautionary tale for fast food workers.
You have to find a real grower, not an industrial farm.
We buy most honey crisps from a local orchard in Wisconsin. Most delicious. Look into where your supermarket’s supplier. The best tasting apples are from northern states. They can be grown in other areas but the results are not as flavorful.
Unfortunately, most of the tomatoes available even in gourmet stores are grown in Mexico, and that even includes the heirloom variety. I will not eat any produce grown in Mexico, so I often have to settle for canned Italian tomatoes.
The best source of tomatoes for me is weekly farmer’s markets. I especially like to buy Japanese tomatoes when they are available. These are not as red as the usual tomatoes—they’re more pink. However, they are very flavorful.
Its grown thousands of miles away from where its sold.
Its often rotten before its ripe.
You want good tomatoes; grow your own.
You have to buy heirloom tomatoes or ones at the farmers market.
***
Or grow your own.
That’s close to my summer mater sammich:
white bread
real tomato
Duke’s mayonnaise
salt
Most consumers want picture perfect vegetables and fruit. As people who garden can tell you that has nothing to do with taste.
Lemon Boys and Sun Sugar cherry tomatoes. She makes my day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xZeNueckzg
Absolutely necessary to buy organic non-gmo fruits, veggies, all the rest. Then you have a chance. Plus, the original nutrients are there…what my dad referred to as “food value.”
That was my grandpa's favorite things to eat in the summer.
He grew his own beefsteaks and ate them like you described. (minus the chips).
As a child, I never really appreciated why we always had beefsteaks and white bread as a side dish when visiting the grandparents.
40 years later, what I wouldn't pay for one of those beautiful tomatoes.
Tomatoes are not GMO.
BFLR
Another 6 weeks before we can plant ours. Haven’t had a decent tomato since Sept.
Heirloom and indeterminate. If you do t know what indeterminate has to do with tomatoes, well you need to learn.
Try a Porter variety, full of flavor.
Another is “Mortgage Lifter”. Yes, an actual type of tomatoe.
This article could also be about California fruit. Great color and shape but no flavor. My first trip to CA showed some beautiful fruit at the roadside stands. Apricots and peaches that tasted like cardboard.
Just like the ones in the grocery store.
Eh, I don’t live in NJ so I don’t know if they are available roadside, but I thought they were gone...
Rugters has come out with similar varieties due to the demand by area farmers to bring back the flavor...I actually ordered a bunch of seed for this season...Hope I am swimming in wonderful Jersey Beefsteak-like tomatoes :)
http://njfarmfresh.rutgers.edu/rutgers-njaes-tomato-seeds-order-form.pdf
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