Comments on: Why supermarket tomatoes look great but taste bland

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 11:22:46 +0000

@Gopiballava: I’d look into what Monsanto gets up to, because many of their practices are totally unacceptable to anyone with any ethics. Terminator seeds for instance are a plight on the world and enslaves farmers to a brand, as well as colluding with 3rd world governments to ban seed collecting (a practice as old as farming) so they’re forced to buy brand seeds.

Quite frankly I don’t trust GMO because I see what these companies get up to. There is a fairytale of big, tasty, disease resistant vegetables that will grow in harsh conditions. But the reality is James Bond villain esque companies who seem to be intentionally contaminating the food supply with their patented seeds. Suing whichever unlucky sucker’s field their patented products happened to infect, giving the impression they are trying to monopolise the worlds food supply for profit.

By: Gopiballava

Gopiballava — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 05:38:19 +0000

Candice: GMOs are not the cause of farmer suicides in India. You can find a number of pieces of research looking in to the causes. There are serious economic problems in Indian farming unrelated to GMOs.

The courts looked at the Monsanto lawsuits I’ve read about and determined that the farmers were deliberately choosing the GMO containing versions of the seeds.

Finally, I’m fairly sure you mean that they patent rather than trademark seeds. It’s a rather significant difference.

By: Candice

Candice — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 16:48:53 +0000

Before some of you guys kvetch about GMOs, perhaps you should do some research into Monsanto’s truly evil business of trademarking seeds and suing family farmers (conveniently putting them out of business) who can’t control what pollen drifts into their cornfields; engineers creating chemical-resistant strains which allow farmers to douse fields with increasing amounts of horrible pesticides; how GMO crops were marketed to Indian farmers, who paid exorbitant prices for failed crops, causing people to commit suicide over their losses. Furthermore, the widespread homogenization of crops gleefully invites a modern day blight that will be horrific in scale. Playing with genes in a lab, do you really know what you’re getting? Imagine losing 80-90% of America’s crops. That’s how much soy is GMO in America.

Yes, humans have been breeding crops for thousands of years. But what’s going on nowadays is totally different. Get educated.

By: Robert S-R

Robert S-R — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 19:57:27 +0000

@Kaviani and @Kai: I’m with both of you, but I’m just being a cynic. : ) Homegrown for the win. And domestication is an amazing thing, when you look at the processes, lasting thousands of years, that can turn wolves into pup-like adult dogs and tiny cereal grains into juicy sweet corn.

By: Monkey

Monkey — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 03:45:58 +0000

So, the flip side to this is that there is less sugar in supermarket varieties, making them a healthier choice?!?

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 20:09:04 +0000

Oops! That’s not meant to be there! Unfortunate copy and paste error. Deleted it now!

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 14:26:01 +0000

The second image is by Wikipedia user fir0002 — see page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bright_red_tomato_and_cross_section02.jpg for details on how this should have been acknowledged.

By: riano

riano — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 02:51:40 +0000

we must breeding again to reach good taste because this tomatoes we sale now only economic scale production.

By: ZL 'Kai' Burington

ZL 'Kai' Burington — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 02:41:05 +0000

Robert, they should also ban every other domesticated crop. Because humans have been in the business of genetic modification since 10 thousand years ago, at least.

By: Kaviani

Kaviani — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 20:22:11 +0000

@ farmerbrown – same song, different gene-verse. The average consumer is ridiculously hung up on appearance, so suppliers have accommodated. That’s why you find “irregular” produce priced way cheaper despite having the exact same nutritional value; also why we add pointless dyes to drinks and foods. People are trifling. HOWEVER…apples are notoriously disease prone, so I’m pretty sure resistance is a huge part of why RDs are cloned so readily.

@ Robert S-R – you can watch me grow them myself. I don’t need your stinkin stores.