Remember the Tomatoes? Heirloom Seeds

In between discussions of high blood pressure, and the upcoming dreaded first colonoscopy, those of us of the “I owned an 8-track once” generation, will sometimes sit around reminiscing about the good old days. One sunny spring afternoon recently, amidst the usual memories of the firsts- first communion, first part time job, first kiss…- one of my friends looked up at the sky, big puffy white clouds rolling by, and said “Remember the tomatoes?”

We sucked on our frozen margaritas and fell silent.

Ahhh, yes, the tomatoes of summer from the local farm stand, or if you were even luckier , your own family garden, where you would pick one off the vine, and later sit on your back steps with your father, a tomato in one hand and the salt shaker in the other, and take a bite out of what had to be positively the best tomato in the world- or so your father said.

Now, tomatoes just don’t taste like they used to. I couldn’t even grow a good tasting tomato last summer. I diligently fertilized and watered three plants. The tomatoes sure looked great. But they tasted like grocery store tomatoes in February- bred for longevity, transport and the flavor of cardboard.

I bought my seedlings at the local nursery. Not this year. I’ll be buying heirloom tomato plants through the mail. Bred to test like a tomato, not the package they come in.

The largest provider of tomato seeds- and all seeds -to the commercial agricultural farmers these days is Monsanto Agrochemical. The seeds are genetically engineered(GE) to meet commercial grower’s needs for a sturdy, pest and drought resistant tomato. Notice flavor is not a Monsanto criteria.

There’s something inherently unnatural about one of the largest toxic chemicals manufacturers in the world now also being the world’s major seed - and therefore food- supplier.

And Monsanto is so big, they have been systematically buying up their smaller competition, now totally controlling the seed market.

Luckily, there are alternatives. A growing number of traditionalists are starting organizations around the world such as The Seed Saver’s Exchange. Their purpose is to protect heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables for future generations.

Thank goodness.

I wonder if some day Monsanto will decide to genetically engineer the flavor back into the tomato?

Related Posts

• January 27, 2009 -- Spawns of Madoff (0)
• November 23, 2008 -- 8 Reasons Why Moving Forward is Really Moving Backwards (0)
• November 7, 2008 -- An Obama in Hand is Worth Two Republicans in the Bush (1)
• October 25, 2008 -- Is “Save” a Four Letter Word in the Current Economy? (0)
• October 23, 2008 -- Clouds Move in Over Alternative Energy (2)

• Gardening results My gardening experiment went better than I expected, but not nearly as well as I had hoped. Here's what happened: I started out by planting...
• Basil Mayo The women at work keep bringing in vegetables. Everything from onions, basil, garlic, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini. It's been a veritable feast of veggies....
• Gardening the CSAIL way [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="404" caption="In CSAIL's indoor tomato garden, robots have supplanted humans. Could this be the future of agriculture?"][/caption] MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab researchers...