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To quote Kenji Lopez Alt - "A BLT is a tomato sandwich, seasoned with bacon." It is a simple concept, but it was the small twist in thinking that helped me shi

To quote Kenji Lopez Alt - "A BLT is a tomato sandwich, seasoned with bacon." It is a simple concept, but it was the small twist in thinking that helped me shift to eating more vegetables. https://www.seriouseats.com/blt-manifesto-how-to-make-best-bacon-lettuce-tomato-sandwich https://www.seriouseats.com/blt-manifesto-how-to-make-best-b... Side note: I made friends with several people mastering in horticulture at the University of Florida, and they were all working towards breeding flavor back into tomatoes, blueberries, strawberries, etc. Decades of research have focused on frost resistance, pest resistance, hardiness, and increased yield, all at the expense of flavor. We are starting to see bespoke flavorful produce at the store, but if the fruits my friends brought home from the experimental fields are any indication, we are ~10 years away from a total shift away from bland produce. One thing that surprised me was the fact that their research is funded in part by selling the best experimental fruits to Japan to be used as gifts. I'll never forget being at margarita night and learning that I just blended $100 dollars of blueberries. And yes, they were the best blueberries that both the experts and I have ever had.

barbazoo 5y ago
> they were all working towards breeding flavor back into tomatoes This surprised me. Every year my FIL plants a little green house full of tomatoes and they taste delicious, much much better than the ones you buy at a store. Much more fleshy and flavorful. All he uses are seeds from the gardening store. So what are they developing I wonder, tomatoes that develop flavor even in the industrialized high speed growth environment they make them in now?
- 01100011 5y ago
  The seeds from the gardening store are probably not the varieties being grown commercially. The seeds or starters sold at the gardening store are an easy step up from commercial plants, regardless of how you grow them. If you've ever seen a truck full of tomatoes, you can see why commercial growers grow the tomatoes they do. They need firm rocks that can survive being covered by several feet of other tomatoes. They pick them early and choose varieties that are optimized for disease resistance, firmness, etc.
  - barbazoo 5y ago
    Thanks. That makes sense. Too bad the property that gets lost completely in the process is flavor.
  - nathan_jr 5y ago
    Commercial growers have definitely diluted the flavor expectation. There really is no comparison between tomatoes sold at mass market and what can be grown at home. I hope to see AppHarvest succeed at scale. https://www.appharvest.com/veggies/ https://www.appharvest.com/veggies/
  - aliswe 5y ago
    Tasteless as some varities are, they earned the nickname "wasserbomben" (i think i got that right) in germany some time ago, meaning "water bombs"
burnished 5y ago
Nice. I read a little about this, that breeding had selected for looks over flavor in the super market. My partner and I have become the people that rave about their farmer's market produce because of this; it really is a night and day difference compared to the grocery store.
- sam_bristow 5y ago
  At least locally another big change was picking the tomatoes green so they didn't get as damaged during transit. When they ripen up at the supermarket they look good but have hardly any flavour.
defterGoose 5y ago
I've been buying these Driscoll's 'Limited Edition' sweet blueberries at whole foods and they are to die for. They are humongous and I wonder if they came out of a breeding program like you're talking about.
fifilura 5y ago
Your comment about blueberries led me into thinking about blueberries here in Sweden as one of the few edibles not manipulated by humans. They are of a different kind, smaller and blue inside. But some summers they grow in abundance during a few weeks in summer and you pick them by the bucket. Or let your kids roam freely until their hands and mouths (and clothes) are completely blue. There are not that many edibles that are so completely uncontrolled by humans. A few other types of berries, some mushrooms, and maybe wild game.
- mongol 5y ago
  What about lingon? And cloudberries?
  - fifilura 5y ago
    Yes, they fall into the category "A few other types of berries". In Sweden those 3 are the most common. Also wild raspberries would count, I guess, although raspberries are also cultivated. I don't know if that means that also the wild raspberries are tainted by human hand.
- yial 5y ago
  I spend most of my time in State College, PA, USA. Nearby, there’s on public / state land, a place called bear meadows. There’s tons of blueberries in a swampy area with trails. From talking to people I’ve talked to who go there to pick them, their grandparents and possibly great grandparents would pick blueberries in the same spot. It’s an interesting and fun experience, and they taste far better then anything I’ve purchased at the grocery store.
  - fifilura 5y ago
    This is a view from Bear Meadows PA, i am guessing the shrubbery there could be blueberries. It looks quite similar maybe a bit bigger, but local variations should be expected. https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7505544,-77.764775,3a,56y,23.11h,80.76t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOZ1fxsj2KGu7f1eiblEM2aF_sb0F1DMTDIxPcY!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOZ1fxsj2KGu7f1eiblEM2aF_sb0F1DMTDIxPcY%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya262-ro0-fo100!7i7168!8i3584 https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7505544,-77.764775,3a,56y,23... This is a view from a typical blueberry place in Sweden: https://www.google.com/maps/@59.9615363,15.2261425,3a,88.2y,319.21h,65.79t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipP0uKV_di0GNM7rgHAc_rtIs22EoyGnbQfBtprf!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipP0uKV_di0GNM7rgHAc_rtIs22EoyGnbQfBtprf%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya7.7239676-ro-0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/@59.9615363,15.2261425,3a,88.2y,...

barbazoo 5y ago

> they were all working towards breeding flavor back into tomatoes This surprised me. Every year my FIL plants a little green house full of tomatoes and they taste delicious, much much better than the ones you buy at a store. Much more fleshy and flavorful. All he uses are seeds from the gardening store. So what are they developing I wonder, tomatoes that develop flavor even in the industrialized high speed growth environment they make them in now?

01100011 5y ago
The seeds from the gardening store are probably not the varieties being grown commercially. The seeds or starters sold at the gardening store are an easy step up from commercial plants, regardless of how you grow them. If you've ever seen a truck full of tomatoes, you can see why commercial growers grow the tomatoes they do. They need firm rocks that can survive being covered by several feet of other tomatoes. They pick them early and choose varieties that are optimized for disease resistance, firmness, etc.
- barbazoo 5y ago
  Thanks. That makes sense. Too bad the property that gets lost completely in the process is flavor.
- nathan_jr 5y ago
  Commercial growers have definitely diluted the flavor expectation. There really is no comparison between tomatoes sold at mass market and what can be grown at home. I hope to see AppHarvest succeed at scale. https://www.appharvest.com/veggies/ https://www.appharvest.com/veggies/
- aliswe 5y ago
  Tasteless as some varities are, they earned the nickname "wasserbomben" (i think i got that right) in germany some time ago, meaning "water bombs"

burnished 5y ago

Nice. I read a little about this, that breeding had selected for looks over flavor in the super market. My partner and I have become the people that rave about their farmer's market produce because of this; it really is a night and day difference compared to the grocery store.

sam_bristow 5y ago
At least locally another big change was picking the tomatoes green so they didn't get as damaged during transit. When they ripen up at the supermarket they look good but have hardly any flavour.

defterGoose 5y ago

I've been buying these Driscoll's 'Limited Edition' sweet blueberries at whole foods and they are to die for. They are humongous and I wonder if they came out of a breeding program like you're talking about.

fifilura 5y ago

Your comment about blueberries led me into thinking about blueberries here in Sweden as one of the few edibles not manipulated by humans. They are of a different kind, smaller and blue inside. But some summers they grow in abundance during a few weeks in summer and you pick them by the bucket. Or let your kids roam freely until their hands and mouths (and clothes) are completely blue. There are not that many edibles that are so completely uncontrolled by humans. A few other types of berries, some mushrooms, and maybe wild game.

mongol 5y ago
What about lingon? And cloudberries?
- fifilura 5y ago
  Yes, they fall into the category "A few other types of berries". In Sweden those 3 are the most common. Also wild raspberries would count, I guess, although raspberries are also cultivated. I don't know if that means that also the wild raspberries are tainted by human hand.
yial 5y ago
I spend most of my time in State College, PA, USA. Nearby, there’s on public / state land, a place called bear meadows. There’s tons of blueberries in a swampy area with trails. From talking to people I’ve talked to who go there to pick them, their grandparents and possibly great grandparents would pick blueberries in the same spot. It’s an interesting and fun experience, and they taste far better then anything I’ve purchased at the grocery store.
- fifilura 5y ago
  This is a view from Bear Meadows PA, i am guessing the shrubbery there could be blueberries. It looks quite similar maybe a bit bigger, but local variations should be expected. https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7505544,-77.764775,3a,56y,23.11h,80.76t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOZ1fxsj2KGu7f1eiblEM2aF_sb0F1DMTDIxPcY!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOZ1fxsj2KGu7f1eiblEM2aF_sb0F1DMTDIxPcY%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya262-ro0-fo100!7i7168!8i3584 https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7505544,-77.764775,3a,56y,23... This is a view from a typical blueberry place in Sweden: https://www.google.com/maps/@59.9615363,15.2261425,3a,88.2y,319.21h,65.79t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipP0uKV_di0GNM7rgHAc_rtIs22EoyGnbQfBtprf!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipP0uKV_di0GNM7rgHAc_rtIs22EoyGnbQfBtprf%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya7.7239676-ro-0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/@59.9615363,15.2261425,3a,88.2y,...