
We broke the tomato, and we’re using science to fix it - protomyth
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/02/we-broke-the-tomato-and-were-using-science-to-fix-it/
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dubfan
The Red Delicious apple underwent a similar change, being bred mainly for size
and shelf appeal rather than taste. People stopped buying them in favor of
other varieties, and the Washington apple industry, which heavily depended on
the Red Delicious, had to be bailed out as a result.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2005/08...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2005/08/04/AR2005080402194.html)

~~~
Evbn
That article is useless without pictures. If people liked old apples better,
why didn't growers just switch back?

Maybe people just happened to like other varieries that entered the market.

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maxerickson
They have to wait for the trees to mature.

(which I realize is obvious, but if you have to wait 10 years or whatever, you
can't exactly just switch back)

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hcal
I'm in the produce industry and every year someone claims to have a new
variety of tomato that tastes like the tomatoes " your grandparents ate". When
the new variety comes to market almost no one is willing to buy the product at
a premium price. It happens over and over.

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glabifrons
Strawberries suffered the same sad fate.

I'm amazed at how huge, juicy, wonderful smelling, and almost completely
flavorless strawberries have gotten over the decades. I still buy them a
couple times a year, and am always disappointed.

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Zimahl
Interesting. I find non-heirloom tomatoes taste great as long as they are
fresh. This means I can rarely get good tomatoes and only in the summer and
early fall. My dad's garden and farmer's markets are the best, Costco tomatoes
are a distant (but viable) second. Almost all the tomatoes I've bought in
grocery stores are terrible - bland and pulpy.

I've read that the bananas our grandparents ate aren't the same as we get
these days due to a blight that wiped them out. I'm not a huge fan of bananas
but maybe these researchers should focus there as well. I would probably eat
more bananas if they had a little better taste.

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glabifrons
I agree completely... The ones that are ripened in the grocery store are bland
and waxy tasting. I really miss the garden I grew up with in the '70s. There's
no comparison to vine ripened tomatoes ( not to be confused with Vine Ripe
brand, of course).

I don't know if you are talking about the same ones or not, but the Campari
tomatoes that Costco sells are about the only store bought tomato I can
stand... They're kind of like a giant cherry tomato.

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Zimahl
Campari - absolutely. They are linked on a vine and as long as you don't
detach the vine they will last a fair amount of time. They are fine straight
from the store but they get better if given a couple days.

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Tekker
In addition to the red delicious, the strawberries, and the tomato, count in
watermelon. It's gotten so you can only buy seedless in the store, and
seedless isn't close to the flavor of seeded.

On all of these, flavor has been bred out in favor of looks and hardiness, and
we now have a generation of people who don't know what the stuff really tasted
like. Hell, I'm forgetting what some of it is like myself, until I eat a
different or heritage variety. And don't get me started on poultry.

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jbuzbee
I'm a fan of what is marketed as "Grape Tomatoes"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grape_tomato>

They have a great flavor if you can get past the size

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mhb
I'm not a fan because they have displaced cherry tomatoes which are better.
Especially the Sungold variety.

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archagon
I once saw a tomato tasting booth at a farmer's market with some 25 different
varietals, and I'm sure there are hundreds of others just waiting to be grown.
We don't need to science the solution.

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Houshalter
The problem with those varieties is they don't produce the same yields.

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Houshalter
Reminds me of chicken farmers that bred chickens that produced the most eggs -
which resulted in highly aggressive chickens that would kill and injure their
competitors and break their eggs. Or the wheat farmer that selected only for
the largest kernels of wheat and got a crop that only produced a few massive
kernels.

In this case we've created tomatoes that grow amazingly huge and fast and
pretty looking, and yet they taste much worse. No one was selecting for taste.

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Agathos
Part of the problem is that the tomato growers have been very successful in
protecting their racket. When someone tries to sell a better-tasting tomato,
the Florida Tomato Committee keeps it off the market.

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recoiledsnake
The title led me to believe that they were trying to fix the loss of nutrients
and mineral content in vegetables like the tomato [1].

I was sorely disappointed to see it was just the taste. I would guess that
fixing the mineral content by good farming techniques will enhance the flavor
too.

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=soil-
deplet...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=soil-depletion-
and-nutrition-loss)

~~~
kbutler
Soil depletion has little to do with Florida tomato quality:

"""the majority of the state's tomatoes are raised in sand. Not sandy loam,
not sandy soil, but pure sand, no more nutrient rich than the stuff
vacationers like to wiggle their toes into on the beaches of Daytona and St.
Pete. "A little piece of loam or clay would go a long way," said Ozores-
Hampton. "But, hello? — this is just pure sand." In that nearly sterile
medium, Florida tomato growers have to practice the equivalent of hydroponic
production, only without the greenhouses."""

[http://www.npr.org/2011/06/28/137371975/how-industrial-
farmi...](http://www.npr.org/2011/06/28/137371975/how-industrial-farming-
destroyed-the-tasty-tomato)

The page ends with an interesting description of the irrigation-from-below
system ("seepage irrigation") enabled by the sand-on-hardpan conditions.

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bluedanieru
How about just stop growing shitty tomatoes? Fuck.

The tomatoes I eat taste great, because I don't buy tomatoes grown by ignorant
assholes who don't understand how plants work.

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maxerickson
I'm pretty sure that not understanding plants is not a problem that industrial
agriculture has.

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bluedanieru
And yet their tomatoes taste like shit. I disagree.

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maxerickson
They just target a market you are not part of.

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Evbn
I am not pleased with engineering for taste without regard for the
corresponding nutrients that our taste evolved to detect.

