Why are Grocery Store Tomatoes so Inferior?

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

Tomatoes grown at home are bursting with flavor. There's no way to get that flavor from some that you bought. Even farm stand tomatoes are less than homegrowns.

I'm not talking about subtle differences, these are two different animals. Why is this?

Here's a box with a few we just picked, the good ones.

- Old Macdonald Funkerhouser

 

[Sig]

Store bought tomatoes generally are quick grown in "barns" with artificial food and lights. Check out youtube for factory tomato farms.
Homegrown tomatoes grow slower, are given better nutrients..... even if its just from the natural dirt, and live under the sun.
Factory tomatoes are also usually cloned from a mother plant, so they have the same, usually inferior, genetics. Tomatoes grown for size and speed to harvest have no time to get good.
I do NOT like raw tomatoes but we grow a LOT of them. They are very easy to grow and have very few pest or disease issues.
I do however like tomato sause, homemade ketsup, tomato soup and a very few other tomato recipes.
This all goes for most vegetables as well.
Even the store bought "organic" vegetables aren't that great.
Its pretty easy to get your farm certified organic in the USA, even if you are not 100% organic. Imagine how much easier it is in other, less strict countries.

 

[anotherbob]

In short capitalism. I don't mean the system as much as just the fact that for farmers it's more economical to grow visually nice, long shelf life, quick to grow and get to market. So basically they're not growing the most flavorful ones but the most appealing and easiest to ship.
There are so many non cavendish bananas (the kind you can get at any grocery store) that are more easily bruised and don't have the same visual pop that are kind of amazing tasting.
And last nothing is as good as fresh.

 

[chilllucky]

Grocery store tomatoes are optimized for shipping. National and regional chain store logistics demand bruise-free, stackable, limited size-varity, produce to be moved many times in standardized containers.

It's really amazing what the growers have been able to do to meet that need, but flavor and texture have absolutely suffered by compromise.

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

I like to think that more nicotine exist in the homegrowns. Maybe that makes them so much better.

 

[warren]

We get some locally sourced in the season, delicious! Much better then the ones from South America.

 

[AcesAndEights]

My brother-in-law is a gardening FANATIC, as in, takes university level gardening courses for fun. He told me it’s because tomatoes that are meant for grocery stores are refrigerated right away after picking. He says homegrown tomatoes would be the same if you plucked them and the put them straight into your fridge and left them for a week. Just his take.

 

[renfield]

It’s a crime to call store bought a tomato. I call them red baseballs.

Home grown tomatoes are one of the great simple pleasures of life.

 

[Servant King]

Growing my first batch ever this summer! I can only hope they will turn out as good as yours look.

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

Growing my first batch ever this summer! I can only hope they will turn out as good as yours look.

Thanks buddy, I hope yours turn out great. Post pictures when you pick some.

 

[Servant King]

Thanks buddy, I hope yours turn out great. Post pictures when you pick some.

I certainly will. I'm pretty stoked about starting up with all this, actually. Our neighbor gifted us a modular 15' x 10' greenhouse that he wasn't using, so wifey and I are going all in with it. In addition to the eight tomato plants, we've got a half dozen tomatillo plants, four zucchini plants, two cucumber plants, three watermelon plants, and two basil plants keeping them company. We figured, since we don't know the first damn thing about gardening, we should stick with the easiest growers that will also love a hot greenhouse, and holy Christ does it get toasty in there during the day! But we know tomatoes aren't fond of sub-70 temperatures, so we seal it up at night, and vent it out in the daytime.

Best part is, 90% of our water use in there is rainwater collection. Our water company hates us for it, but they can suck it!

 

[64alex]

My brother-in-law is a gardening FANATIC, as in, takes university level gardening courses for fun. He told me it’s because tomatoes that are meant for grocery stores are refrigerated right away after picking. He says homegrown tomatoes would be the same if you plucked them and the put them straight into your fridge and left them for a week. Just his take.

One definitely important factor among other is refrigeration as it basically destroy all flavor of tomatoes. Never refrigerate them

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

I certainly will. I'm pretty stoked about starting up with all this, actually. Our neighbor gifted us a modular 15' x 10' greenhouse that he wasn't using, so wifey and I are going all in with it. In addition to the eight tomato plants, we've got a half dozen tomatillo plants, four zucchini plants, two cucumber plants, three watermelon plants, and two basil plants keeping them company. We figured, since we don't know the first damn thing about gardening, we should stick with the easiest growers that will also love a hot greenhouse, and holy Christ does it get toasty in there during the day! But we know tomatoes aren't fond of sub-70 temperatures, so we seal it up at night, and vent it out in the daytime.

Best part is, 90% of our water use in there is rainwater collection. Our water company hates us for it, but they can suck it!

The first few years I grew a garden, the birds and deer wrecked it.

This year we started out with an Amazon greenhouse, got it all filled up with raised beds and plants. A week later a storm picked it up and dropped it 50ft across the yard and destroyed it. The beds were still there so we built a fence. That has kept the deer back somewhat.

Long story short, the greenhouse will help you. It's bugs and critters that make gardening tough. Soil is important too, but if you use the premade stuff you cant go wrong there.

 

[Tongue-Fried]

We have a few fruit trees on our land, and I’m telling you the apples just taste REAL. It’s so weird how store bought apples taste good and whatnot, but then you eat a local or homegrown apple and you’re right: they’re two different animals… almost tasting like completely different fruits! We also have a pear tree, same thing. They’re not the prettiest to look at, but you pick them and let them sit on the counter for a few days to a week to soften up? Amazing.

I’m also convinced that there may be a small portion of that taste that’s psychological; you know, you put your hard work and effort into something, so it just makes it taste that much better. Kind of like when you cut your grass vs having someone else cut it. When you get finished, your yard just seems to look that much better in your eyes; but I think that’s only a fraction of the reason homegrown things taste better, most of it is because it’s real, hasn’t had pesticides, and the growth process has been organic/natural and hasn’t been tampered with in any way. Things were as they should be, and therefore the fruit or vegetable is also, as it should be.

 

[OzPiper]

Hydroponics

I don't have green thumbs.
So if I want to have a tomato salad, I'd drive an hour away to an old school Italian greengrocer for his homegrown heirloom tomatoes.
He will only sell you tomatoes for eating that day or the next.
If you want some for later in the week, he'd tell you to come back in a few days time.
His shop was thought of so highly that when he retired a few years back, the community had a fundraising drive to secure the business for his daughter (who had been helping him run the store).

 

[jackattack]

Good on subject video.

 

[VDL_Piper]

Most tomatoes you buy are grown out of season, picked green and gassed with Ethylene Gas. Tomatoes produce their own Ethylene but at a slow rate so stores pick them green and cold store them and then on an as needs basis stock is brought forward and gassed to make it red but essentially you have a green tomato inside.

 

[bullet08]

It has to do with when it's picked. Home vegetables and fruits are picked right when they are ripe. Retaining full flavor. While store bought are picked before being ripe and hope they will turn color to look like ripe by the time they hit the shelf. The visual will be great, but the taste won't be there.

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

Growing up, at my house, my grandmother's, or any of my aunts or uncles houses, there would be a plate of peeled and sliced tomatoes on the table with salt and pepper added. During the spring we had killer meals, peas ,corn, whatever you like. Best part was the fried cornbread! Those dinners were the best. Tomatoes are fine with the peel left on, but much better without.

Once my wife and I got settled in I started to hint about how peeled tomatoes should be on the table. She said she'd never heard of such peeling tomatoes, but I saw her in the kitchen trying. After while she got the hang of it, and they've been there on the table ever since, when in season. Her family was not from the southern united states, she grew up everywhere. I got the tomatoes, but the fried cornbread aint happening.

In recent times people fry so much less. Breakfast was fried bacon and eggs, lunch was a fried porkchop, and dinner was a fried chicken, at my grandparents house. The same was the case at my house to a lesser extent. These people were thin and healthy, and the tea was sweet, sweet, extra sweet. With cigarettes going like the house was on fire.

My Grandad died in his late 80's, they say his cancer could be caused by a high fat diet... I say he lived and kept his health into his late 80's, he must have been doing something right.

 

[VDL_Piper]

We still keep our lard and tallow for cooking with, it truly is the best. The whole push towards seed oils was the beginning of the end and vegetable/canola oil et al are banned in this house. We do love good olive oil and use it on salads/fish/cured meats and vegetables and pasta in true Mediterranean fashion with caramelised balsamic to accompany. Simple food is tasty, healthy and doesn't cost that much.