Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit

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Wed Sep-07-11 10:39 PM
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Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit

http://www.amazon.com/Tomatoland-Industrial-Agriculture-Destroyed-Alluring/dp/1449401090/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315452954&sr=8-1

I am reading this now and it's fantastic, very much in the same vein as Food, Inc., Supersize Me, Fast Food Nation, and the like..

It gets at all the casualties of factory farming, from the workers trapped in virtual to the general public, stuck eating bland food lacking in nutrition, to the tomato itself, a mere shadow of what it once was, bred for uniformity of size and ease of packaging, not flavor.

I highly recommend this one.

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WHEN CRABS ROAR

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Wed Sep-07-11 10:43 PM
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1. The goal is profits above all else.

Sadly it didn't stop at tomatoes.

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alstephenson

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Wed Sep-07-11 10:52 PM
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2. Heirloom tomatoes.

Delicious and exquisite, but very expensive. Once you've tasted a REAL tomato you will "never go back", as they say. I thought all tomatoes tasted like cardboard - until I tasted an heirloom tomato from the farmer's market. The taste and texture are so much better than the hybrid hot house varieties. Heirloom tomatoes - UGLY but DELICIOUS. The uglier the better!

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NRaleighLiberal

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Wed Sep-07-11 11:05 PM
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4. Well worth growing yourself...and not at all difficult!

After growing nearly 1000 different types over the past 25 years or so, the variation and complexity - different colors, shapes and sizes, flavors - we only eat the tomatoes we grow - from June until Sept - and just go without until the following summer!

It is not worth paying the outrageous prices that Whole Foods and others charge for heirlooms that are green picked and shelf ripened - they are of course better than the hard pink supermarket tomatoes, but not a fraction of what they are like when found at Farmers Markets locally grown, or harvested yourselves.

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alittlelark

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Wed Sep-07-11 11:18 PM
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5. Put in a small greenhouse - never do without!

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Historic NY

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Thu Sep-08-11 06:39 AM
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6. Yes they are ugly.........I've been experimenting with some.

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brewens

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Wed Sep-07-11 10:54 PM
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3. I have grower buddies that give me the good shit in the summer!

I never touch the commercial tomatos. At least not the whole ones.

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Odin2005

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Tue Sep-13-11 10:48 AM
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7. I cannot eat the big bland tomatoes, I think they are nasty.

I love the little flavorful ones my mom grows, though.

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