
The mystery of why some people hate raw tomatoes - monort
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/tasters-choice-why-i-hate-raw-tomatoes-and-you-dont/
======
zzalpha
Alas, despite the title, and my hope that someone could finally help me
justify my deep aversion to raw tomatoes, the article provides little
enlightenment:

 _Frankly, the scientific community has been sadly remiss in getting to the
bottom of the mystery of why raw tomatoes make some of us gag, despite a few
scattered flavor studies._

Oh well. I guess it'll remain a mystery...

~~~
killjoywashere
I think a big part of it, at least for me, is the mucoid layer around the
seeds. If I seed raw tomatoes, they go down fine. But those seeds: it's like
eating someone else's boogers.

~~~
tyingq
Okra is worse. [https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-
cbf76cc77c20cdd2e90413...](https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-
cbf76cc77c20cdd2e9041360241ca88d-c)

~~~
13of40
While we're at it, don't forget natto. Though I guess it's cheating since it's
not "fresh".

[http://www.sakura-
hostel.co.jp/blog/assets_c/2011/10/natto%2...](http://www.sakura-
hostel.co.jp/blog/assets_c/2011/10/natto%201-thumb-320x370-1546.jpg)

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yesimahuman
I hated raw tomatoes, and then I had a proper heirloom tomato which made me
realize it's actually that most mass-produced tomatoes are _terrible_

~~~
athenot
This is why tomatoes are a big reason for my vegetable garden. It's near
impossible to get a good-tasting tomato in the store. The ones that taste
really good either don't look good (marketing suicide) or can't make the
thousand-mile journey through our food supply chain.

Of course some people may still have an aversion to fresh tomatoes for other
reasons. We're all wired slightly differently when it comes to food.

As an aside, the article mentions brussel sprouts. They have a very different
taste when they are fresh (usually if they are not sold on the stalk, they
likely aren't fresh). I've suprised many people who told me they didn't like
brussels sprouts then tasted fresh the ones I cooked.

Same for peas. Growing up in France, we'd get peas that were harvested less
than 4 hours before eating. Past that threshold, the sugar becomes starch and
the taste changes significantly.

~~~
vram22
For green peas, I actually prefer them not sweet (or very little sweet),
because we use them as a legume and eat it as a dry or gravy dish with rice or
chapatis/rotis. But I prefer the taste of fresh green peas to that of dried
yellow ones (even after cooking the latter after soaking in water, they taste
somewhat bland and floury).

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danaliv
I will never understand this attitude that everyone must like the same things,
or that there must be _justification_ for disliking something. And then of
course you get the inevitable "oh well you just haven't had a _real_
tomato/cilantro/Harry Potter/whatever" people, which adds a lovely dollop of
hipster authenticity fetishism to the whole chauvinism shit sandwich. It's a
matter of taste, people. Some people don't like the things you like and that's
that. Deal with it. _sunglasses descend onto face_

~~~
pmarreck
Yeah, you might _think_ that and then meet my friend who HATES both chocolate
AND coffee (at the age of 45... plenty of time to adapt to coffee, but not
liking chocolate is unfathomable to me), and go "WTF, seriously?" ;)

Tastes are one of those things that we just can't (no matter how hard we try,
or want to) grasp rationally. These entirely subjective experiences are
just... not rationally conveyable.

This spills over into sexual preferences as well, btw (not to derail the
topic, but thinking of sexual preferences as mere "taste variation" is useful
IMHO).

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mmanfrin
I love tomatoes -- but a majority of tomatoes that people get are in prepared
food, and those are selected or engineered to be stiff, flavorless hunks of
red plantflesh. You owe it to yourself to try off-the-vine heirloom tomatoes
(with balsamic/olive oil/salt) if you don't like tomatoes; it is truly a
different experience.

~~~
red75prime
My parents grew heirloom tomatoes 30 years ago. I wasn't able to enjoy them
raw. Cucumber and tomato salad with a bit of oil is tolerable though.

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double0jimb0
It took me the better part of 35 years to determine I have an allergy to most
nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, ...) [https://draxe.com/nightshade-
vegetables/](https://draxe.com/nightshade-vegetables/)

I think my body knew this before it registered consciously...

I now chose this to explain my life-long aversion to tomatoes and eggplant.
But french fries are still my kryptonite :(

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dropit_sphere
Well this was vindicating, and then frustrating (they still don't know why
some people don't like raw tomatoes).

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Udik
There's a thing that annoys me in the article (and in the comments here). And
it's this: which tomato you don't like? What do you mean by tomato, exactly?
All of them? Or just the slimy pale slice in your hamburger? Here, check a
picture of a tiny sample of tomato varieties:

[http://img1.amando.it/imagesdyn/articoli/52/21/65408.jpg](http://img1.amando.it/imagesdyn/articoli/52/21/65408.jpg)

Now, many of these taste as different from each other as they look. They also
have different uses- some are excellent for sauces, some others in salads,
some can be eaten as fruit. So what's the point in talking about tomatoes in
general? Can we be a bit more precise, in the name of science? :)

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tracker1
I don't care for cilantro, mention in the article... but after forcing myself
to eat it, quite a few times, I've gotten over it... About the only foods I
don't care for and have tried to get past, and eat them.. are any kind of
squash, other than pumpkin, the texture of raw meat, and any kind of organ
meat I just don't care for.

But cilantro, and lots of other veggies, I've gotten past, and now some things
like just by making myself try them. Growing up, we had a rather limited
sample palette, my mom didn't like a lot of things. It's as an adult I've come
to expand things.

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NeonVice
Any correlation to not liking olives? I really don't like raw tomatoes, but a
hint of olives (green or black) is repulsive to me.

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nevir
I'm the complete opposite - I can't stand the flavor or texture of cooked
tomatoes.

Raw tomatoes are great, as are tomato based sauces

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pacaro
I'm in the same boat w.r.t. tomatoes, and like very few of the nightshades,
potatoes and chili peppers being the exceptions.

I find the smell of tomato plants to be totally repulsive, far worse than the
tomatoes themselves.

My gagging when forced to eat tomatoes as a kid was seen as histrionics. It's
satisfying to have some external validation

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weisser
My understanding is that people don't like the "mealy" taste of many
supermarket tomatoes. The reason they develop this taste is that they are
picked prematurely so they can ripen in transit. Tomatoes are meant to ripen
on the vine, hence why some are great and others are not.

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petercooper
Oh awesome. This got me to dig out my raw 23andme genome data and it turns out
I have the "supertaster" gene for bitterness as well. Explains why I hate all
the foods (cauliflower, raw tomato, broccoli) and drinks mentioned (tonic
water and alcohol generally) - very cool to know :)

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vram22
Other side of the coin: I don't like cooked tomatoes. Iranian cuisine has
them, on top of rice dishes. I like Iranian cuisine otherwise, which I've had
in a few restaurants in India, but not the fried/boiled tomatoes. Prefer them
raw like in a salad.

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senthil_rajasek
In my case, one of the reasons I hate raw tomatoes is because the seeds look
like an alien egg cluster sac and I know they can pass through human digestive
system and still remain viable unharmed by the digestive juices.

~~~
maxerickson
If someone offers you Kopi luwak, refuse.

~~~
Y_Y
Because the civets are usually kept in terrible conditions just to make
novelty coffee?

~~~
maxerickson
That's a fine reason.

But I was just being immature.

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dashoffset
tl;dr We don't know yet.

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chrisbrandow
There is a component in tomatoes that has a "grassy" flavor and that by my
observations gets stronger when a tomato rots. I wonder if that (a) is true
(b) related to the effect for some people.

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frik
Baby/small child don't eat /shouldn't eat tomatoes.

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danfinlay
I'd like a genetic analysis.

