Tasteless Tomatoes?

Ever buy a great looking tomato, bring it home and discover it doesn’t taste like one?

Barry Estabrook, author of “Tomatoland” explains what’s happening with tomatoes, why to grow your own and how workers are being treated like slaves:

What happens to tomatoes grown today?

Estabrook: Winter tomatoes that we get in our grocery stores and in fast food places are picked when they’re bright green. Any hint of coloration is treasonous in a Florida tomato field in the winter. The industry says they’re “mature green” and supposedly might develop flavor, but there’s no way the pickers can tell the difference between mature and immature.

These green tomatoes are taken back to a warehouse, packed in boxes, which are stacked on pallets and moved into storage areas where they’re exposed to ethylene gas. The gas forces the tomatoes to turn the right color; it doesn’t ripen them.

Does this account for the lack of flavor in the modern day tomato?

Estabrook: There are two factors at work here. The first is that the tomatoes are picked when they’re immature and no matter what you do, an immature tomato will never get any taste; though it might look alluring.

The second problem with industrial tomatoes is that for the last fifty years, they’ve been bred for one thing only, and that’s yield. One farmer told me, “I get paid per pound. I don’t get paid a cent for taste.” Sadly, he was right.

What are the challenges to growing tomatoes in a climate like Florida?

Estabrook: I quickly learned that from a botanical and horticultural point of view, you would have to be a fool to try to grow tomatoes commercially in a place like Florida.

The main problem is that tomatoes’ ancestors come from desert areas. They’re adapted to extremely dry, low-humidity areas. That’s why Southern Italy and parts of California are so good for tomatoes; it doesn’t rain all summer. Florida is notoriously humid, which is just perfect conditions for all of the funguses, rusts, blights, insects and pests that destroy tomatoes.

That’s why they have to use 110 different chemicals, fertilizers, fungicides and herbicides to even get a crop. Florida and California grow about the same amount of tomatoes. Florida uses eight times to get the same agricultural product.

The second problem with Florida is – I’m not even going to call it soil, because it isn’t. Florida tomatoes are grown in sand. Just like the sand on Daytona Beach, it’s great to wiggle your toes in, but it contains zero nutrients. None.

So they have to essentially pump in all the chemical food that the plant is going to need for its lifetime. Then they seal the row in plastic and hope they’ll get a crop.

What is the best choice for a consumer?

Estabrook: The best course of action is, of course, to grow your own or go to the farmers market. Or if you’re in your market, and you see tomatoes from your region in season, those are the best solutions.