RE: GMO Toxins and Pregnant Women
December 20, 2011 at 7:55 pm
(This post was last modified: December 20, 2011 at 8:04 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
An opportunity to talk about tomatoes...out-fucking-standing!
A lot of people do seem to believe that locally grown, or seasonally grown, or organically grown tomatoes "tatse better". The USDA actually did a study on this (and I'll try to find it for anyone interested). Despite the strongly held convictions of most tomato lovers, the study showed that we have a complete lack of ability to determine the difference between a "naturally grown" tomato and a "conventionally grown" tomato. Disappointing I suppose, you'd think we'd be a little bit better at this sort of shit what with how often we use our sense of taste. There are essentially three things that determine the flavor of any given vegetable. Variety (cultivar), management practices, and post production practices. Different types of farms go different ways in these three areas.
-Variety or Cultivar is essentially what "kind" of tomato you're dealing with. What it's been bred for, and this determines a lot of what's about to happen.
Most conventional cultivars are chosen for yield, resistance, and color. Almost all conventional cultivars are bred to handle particular post production practices. In the case of tomatos that would be responsiveness to gassing. The tomatos are picked "stone green" and then gassed to become red and appealing to the consumer. This means that they re firm and withstand transport very well, but they are not ripe. If a conventional tomato cultivar has had any time spent on taste it's a bonus and an afterthought, they really don't give a shit.
Now, alternative ag enterprises often leverage heirloom cultivars (though they use the conventional one just as often). Because these smaller producers may not be looking to get into the processing market or retail aisles they have more leeway when choosing what they want to grow. Fruits bred specifically for taste but look but ugly, for example. Many of the tastier fruits are much less resistant to any number of risk factors like disease or pests. This makes them unsuitable for large scale commercial ag and perfect for the niche market.
-Management Practices are the procedures, materials, and equipment the farmer uses to actually grow the crop.
Conventional ag is pretty much 100% mechanized wherever possible. This has a lot of effects on the quality of the fruit. Many are bruised or damaged, far less attention is given to the crop and so bad tomatos slip into the bins etc. On the other hand, conventional ag usually has irrigation and fertilization handled so much more effectively than their small scale counterparts that it's difficult to even make a comparison. The purity of their nutrients and the availability to the crop, couple with timely irrigation means that conventional have the greatest potential for tasty fruit. That potential being wasted most times due to cost or cultivar selection, or post production handling. Most times conventional vegetables are picked at a much earlier stage in development to increase their shelf life and give the product time to reach market.
The little guys do a lot of things by hand (usually by necessity, they can't afford armies of migrants or the big equipment). They pay attention to the crop, they let it ripen completely, and they dispose of the culls before you ever see them. Tomatoes are left on the vine as long as possible because most times these guys don't even use a cooler, they pick em and go straight to market.
-Post production, this one is the killer. I've touched upon this above and I don't really need two columns because both types of producer can use any of these methods (or none of them). Gassing is the lone exception. That's almost completely large scale producers. Sometimes small scale guys get together and form a coop to bring their individual costs down so they can do this, but most often they don't. Things either might do-direct to retail, holding in a cooler or flash freezing, on-site processing into marinara etc. There are a lot of choices.
In either case, good or bad, the taste of a tomato has everything to do with the decisions the producer made. If a conventional producer decided to leave the tomato on the vine (instead of gassing) he would have a hell of a tomato..trust me. I used to take people for tours of the farm and they'd ask "what do you need to do to get a job like this?" and I'd pull my salt shaker out of my pocket "Well, you have to own one of these." The little guys lack the technical ability or the funds much of the time to come close to matching the potential in the commercial scale system. Thankfully for the little guys the big growers have concerns entirely unrelated to taste, and those concerns win out 9/10 times. Unfortunately for the little guys, a tomato chosen, grown, and handled for taste does not ship or keep very well.
I love tomatoes.
Mehmet- if you don't use the best seed you're going to lose money, some crops return $14 dollars an acre assuming the best of everything is used. Going into debt as you work your ass off 7 days a week is usually not preferable to making money, The whole enterprise is soup sandwich. I'm a big fan of the little guy and his vine ripe tomatoes too though. Sad truth is that if the little guy wants to stay in business he's going to have to be able to employ the same sorts of procedures and use the same inputs the big growers do scaled down for his own production area. Otherwise he'll get left behind under a sea of progress. There's actually a big movement right now of small farms that are more cutting edge than the big guys. That's their ad copy, that's what they sell. They grow top notch stuff that keeps well, is resistant to this or that, requires less fertilization, all the while being what they call "sustainable". GM has a shitload of promise for those guys, and by extension, the rest of us.
A lot of people do seem to believe that locally grown, or seasonally grown, or organically grown tomatoes "tatse better". The USDA actually did a study on this (and I'll try to find it for anyone interested). Despite the strongly held convictions of most tomato lovers, the study showed that we have a complete lack of ability to determine the difference between a "naturally grown" tomato and a "conventionally grown" tomato. Disappointing I suppose, you'd think we'd be a little bit better at this sort of shit what with how often we use our sense of taste. There are essentially three things that determine the flavor of any given vegetable. Variety (cultivar), management practices, and post production practices. Different types of farms go different ways in these three areas.
-Variety or Cultivar is essentially what "kind" of tomato you're dealing with. What it's been bred for, and this determines a lot of what's about to happen.
Most conventional cultivars are chosen for yield, resistance, and color. Almost all conventional cultivars are bred to handle particular post production practices. In the case of tomatos that would be responsiveness to gassing. The tomatos are picked "stone green" and then gassed to become red and appealing to the consumer. This means that they re firm and withstand transport very well, but they are not ripe. If a conventional tomato cultivar has had any time spent on taste it's a bonus and an afterthought, they really don't give a shit.
Now, alternative ag enterprises often leverage heirloom cultivars (though they use the conventional one just as often). Because these smaller producers may not be looking to get into the processing market or retail aisles they have more leeway when choosing what they want to grow. Fruits bred specifically for taste but look but ugly, for example. Many of the tastier fruits are much less resistant to any number of risk factors like disease or pests. This makes them unsuitable for large scale commercial ag and perfect for the niche market.
-Management Practices are the procedures, materials, and equipment the farmer uses to actually grow the crop.
Conventional ag is pretty much 100% mechanized wherever possible. This has a lot of effects on the quality of the fruit. Many are bruised or damaged, far less attention is given to the crop and so bad tomatos slip into the bins etc. On the other hand, conventional ag usually has irrigation and fertilization handled so much more effectively than their small scale counterparts that it's difficult to even make a comparison. The purity of their nutrients and the availability to the crop, couple with timely irrigation means that conventional have the greatest potential for tasty fruit. That potential being wasted most times due to cost or cultivar selection, or post production handling. Most times conventional vegetables are picked at a much earlier stage in development to increase their shelf life and give the product time to reach market.
The little guys do a lot of things by hand (usually by necessity, they can't afford armies of migrants or the big equipment). They pay attention to the crop, they let it ripen completely, and they dispose of the culls before you ever see them. Tomatoes are left on the vine as long as possible because most times these guys don't even use a cooler, they pick em and go straight to market.
-Post production, this one is the killer. I've touched upon this above and I don't really need two columns because both types of producer can use any of these methods (or none of them). Gassing is the lone exception. That's almost completely large scale producers. Sometimes small scale guys get together and form a coop to bring their individual costs down so they can do this, but most often they don't. Things either might do-direct to retail, holding in a cooler or flash freezing, on-site processing into marinara etc. There are a lot of choices.
In either case, good or bad, the taste of a tomato has everything to do with the decisions the producer made. If a conventional producer decided to leave the tomato on the vine (instead of gassing) he would have a hell of a tomato..trust me. I used to take people for tours of the farm and they'd ask "what do you need to do to get a job like this?" and I'd pull my salt shaker out of my pocket "Well, you have to own one of these." The little guys lack the technical ability or the funds much of the time to come close to matching the potential in the commercial scale system. Thankfully for the little guys the big growers have concerns entirely unrelated to taste, and those concerns win out 9/10 times. Unfortunately for the little guys, a tomato chosen, grown, and handled for taste does not ship or keep very well.
I love tomatoes.
Mehmet- if you don't use the best seed you're going to lose money, some crops return $14 dollars an acre assuming the best of everything is used. Going into debt as you work your ass off 7 days a week is usually not preferable to making money, The whole enterprise is soup sandwich. I'm a big fan of the little guy and his vine ripe tomatoes too though. Sad truth is that if the little guy wants to stay in business he's going to have to be able to employ the same sorts of procedures and use the same inputs the big growers do scaled down for his own production area. Otherwise he'll get left behind under a sea of progress. There's actually a big movement right now of small farms that are more cutting edge than the big guys. That's their ad copy, that's what they sell. They grow top notch stuff that keeps well, is resistant to this or that, requires less fertilization, all the while being what they call "sustainable". GM has a shitload of promise for those guys, and by extension, the rest of us.
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