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A comment on Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious?. Parent comment

Re:Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutriti... by macawfish on Monday March 05, 2018 @11:59AM (#16522395)
I once bought some organic heirloom variety tomatoes shipped from Mexico. I was surprised to find that they were disgusting, flavorless and spongy. I've grown the same varieties myself in rich yard soil, and they were flavorful and delicious. I can only imagine that the imported tomatoes were grown in depleted soil using less than sustainable methods.

I really wish big ag people would wake the frick up and realize that the benefits of sustainable polyculture go way way way beyond sometimes-higher yields. Permaculture methods strengthen the diverse ecologies that enrich soil in the first place.

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Re:Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutriti... by jrochkind1 on Monday March 05, 2018 @12:07PM (#16522466)
Tomatoes don't ship and store well. Especially "heirloom" varieties, which mostly just means (non-hybrid) varieties that aren't of the few currently typically grown for large-scale commercial production. You know why they chose/hybridized the (fairly tasteless/bad tasting) tomato varieties that _are_ currently used for large-scale commercial production? Because they ship and store better.
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Re:Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutriti... by mistermann on Monday March 05, 2018 @12:04PM (#16522438)
> I can only imagine that the imported tomatoes were grown in depleted soil using less than sustainable methods.

This is far from the only explanation. I've bought supposed "heirloom" tomatoes in a high end supermarket before, and they were also disgusting. What you bought probably simply wasn't a proper heirloom tomato.

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Re:Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutriti... by jdmichal on Monday March 05, 2018 @06:35PM (#16525594)
All heirloom means is that it grows true from seed. Any other properties of the plant, including taste, are up in the air.
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Re:Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutriti... by mistermann on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @02:30AM (#16527443)
Where do non-heirloom tomatoes come from if not seeds?
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Re:Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutriti... by grzm on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @02:35AM (#16527461)
A key distinction is the "grows true", which I interpret as "breed true", i.e., the seeds are non-hybridized. For a bit more detail, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heirloom_tomato#Seed_collectin...
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Re:Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutriti... by mistermann on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @01:33PM (#16530850)
Interesting. As for OP's experience above, a more important distinction is whether the "heirloom" tomatoes sold in grocery store are actually heirloom, according to this definition. I know that in Canada they aren't always.
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Re:Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutriti... by macawfish on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @04:00PM (#16532083)
My point is that you can lead a horse to a stream but if its a drought and the stream's dried up, they couldn't drink from it if they tried. doesn't matter if the horse is genetically more of a pony, stallion, mule, zebra or unicorn. nope, if there's no water, the horse can't drink.

These tomatoes were not only spongy (which I'd expect from shipped tomatoes), they just had no taste.

http://njfarmfresh.rutgers.edu/documents/tomatosalt2009.pdf

I did a little research and found that there are a few more possibilities. Maybe the tomatoes were grown hydroponically. Maybe it was very rainy or they over-watered before harvesting. (https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/06/01/154072388/ho...)

I assumed "depleted soil" because that's a rampant problem, but it could be other stuff too.

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Re:Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutriti... by imtringued on Monday March 05, 2018 @02:00PM (#16523403)
Tomatoes are picked unripe otherwise they get damaged dzring transport.
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