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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Joe McCormick. Today's the Thursday, and normally on

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Speaker 1: a Thursday you'd be getting a brand new core episode

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Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, but a couple of

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Speaker 1: us here on the team are out for a day

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Speaker 1: this week, so instead we are moving up the Vault

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Speaker 1: episode that was originally scheduled for this Saturday. We'll be

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Speaker 1: back with new episodes of Weird House Cinema on Friday

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Speaker 1: and Listener Mail on Monday, and then all new core

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Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind on Tuesday of

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Speaker 1: next week. But for today, we hope you enjoy Part

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Speaker 1: two of our series on the tomato originally published on

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Speaker 1: August Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,

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Speaker 1: and we're back with part two of our talk about tomatoes.

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Speaker 1: You know, there was a question last time that we

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Speaker 1: explored at some length, which is, uh, this question you've

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Speaker 1: had for a while, Robert, I think, based on reading

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Speaker 1: a placard at a botanical garden, which is did the

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Speaker 1: people of the past few hundred years regard tomatoes as poisonous.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes there's this generalization made that you know, it used

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Speaker 1: to be that everybody thought tomatoes were poison but now

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Speaker 1: we figured out that's not true. Now, of course tomatoes

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Speaker 1: are not poisonous, but it's also the historical characterization is

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Speaker 1: a little more complicated than that, right. Yeah, Again, it

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Speaker 1: kind of depends on what part of the world you're

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Speaker 1: looking at. What say, you're which European nation, and during

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Speaker 1: what period of the tomatoes um rise to power as

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Speaker 1: a global food source. But I came across a great

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Speaker 1: article that is by the same author as the author

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Speaker 1: of a book that we talked about in in the

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Speaker 1: last episode of Book about Tomatoes, Uh, Andrew F. Smith.

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Speaker 1: Smith is also the author of an article that was

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Speaker 1: published in nineteen in the journal Pharmacy and History called

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Speaker 1: Tomato Pills Will Cure All Your Ills. And this is

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Speaker 1: a fantastic article about, you know, tomato pills for your

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Speaker 1: jaundice and your diarrhea. It's a wild ride and I

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Speaker 1: can't wait to get into it. Well, let's definitely get

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Speaker 1: into it. But first, just your reminder, this is a

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Speaker 1: part two. We do encourage you to go back and

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Speaker 1: listen to part one before proceeding. By all means Part

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Speaker 1: one first. Okay, So, as we discussed previously, when the

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Speaker 1: tomato was first introduced to Europe from meso America. Of course,

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Speaker 1: in meso America, among the waddle speaking people, it was

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Speaker 1: cultivated as a food crop, and then it's spread from

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Speaker 1: there to Europe and then to the rest of the world.

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Speaker 1: But when this first happened, some European writers did claim

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Speaker 1: that the tomato was was not good food, it was

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Speaker 1: not fit to put in his body. Uh, and they

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Speaker 1: wrote as much in their their culinary and horticultural treatises. Though,

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Speaker 1: as we talked about last time, a lot a lot

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Speaker 1: of these writers will sort of note that, well, people

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Speaker 1: in Spain and Italy somehow eat these things, but uh,

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Speaker 1: but nevertheless they are not good to eat or their

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Speaker 1: poison or whatever. But this changed over time, and by

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Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds, tomato use was definitely on the rise

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Speaker 1: throughout Europe, especially throughout southern Europe, though some of the

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Speaker 1: old ideas still lingered here and there. According to Smith,

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Speaker 1: though within the culture of the United States specifically, and

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Speaker 1: I guess this would have been you know, the British

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Speaker 1: colonies in the east of the United States, and then

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Speaker 1: after the Revolution in the early United States, the tomato

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Speaker 1: was still pretty widely regarded as in some way, you know,

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Speaker 1: not good to eat. Definitely through a lot of the

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Speaker 1: eighteenth century, though, that was changing, and then it underwent

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Speaker 1: a relatively rapid transition during a few decades in the

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Speaker 1: first half of the nineteenth century. Uh So, He says

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Speaker 1: that around eighteen twenty, it was still a pretty widespread

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Speaker 1: belief within the United States that tomatoes were somehow inedible

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Speaker 1: and maybe poisonous, is not good to eat. But um,

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Speaker 1: he says, quote, within three decades after eighteen twenty, farmers

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Speaker 1: cultivated tomatoes the length and breadth of the country in

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Speaker 1: almost every garden from Boston to New Orleans, and Americans

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Speaker 1: served them on every table from July to October. According

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Speaker 1: to a British observer, Americans served tomatoes every day, prepared

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Speaker 1: in every imaginable way. And we're the scenic quanon of

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Speaker 1: American existence. So that that's a pretty dramatic shift. Yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: to go from poison to just the thing that you

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Speaker 1: eat like crazy for its entire season, yeah exactly. So

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Speaker 1: what led to this change in attitudes over such a

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Speaker 1: relatively short time. Well Smith notes that there were many reasons,

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Speaker 1: but it seems one of the most important was quacks.

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Speaker 1: I love it, I love it, I love a good

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Speaker 1: quacks for goods to worry. Okay, So, as we alluded

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Speaker 1: to last time, many books and supposed botanical or horticultural

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Speaker 1: experts in Europe in the colonies since the sixteenth century

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Speaker 1: seemed to think there was something wrong with eating tomatoes.

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Speaker 1: You know, maybe they were poisonous, maybe inedible. Clearly not

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Speaker 1: everybody in Europe thought this way. Tomatoes were you know,

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Speaker 1: very popular in Italy and France and Spain and Portugal

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Speaker 1: and more and more. People of course were of course

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Speaker 1: cooking with tomatoes all the time. But in England, Philip Miller,

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Speaker 1: who was a superintendent of the Chelsea Physic Garden, wrote

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Speaker 1: in the seventeen fifties that small yellow love apples were

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Speaker 1: starting to be directed for medicinal use by one college

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Speaker 1: in their dispensatory, and Miller, even in the seventeen fifties

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Speaker 1: noted that well even some English people are eating tomatoes

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Speaker 1: in soup. Uh, though at the same time he says, quote,

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Speaker 1: there are persons who think them not wholesome, so this

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Speaker 1: ambigue it. He still exists somewhat, but by the seventeen

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Speaker 1: fifties it's clear that some doctors and medical students or

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Speaker 1: trying trying experiments with tomatoes as medicine, and some English

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Speaker 1: people just straight up put him in the stew uh

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Speaker 1: And apparently an early evangelist for tomatoes in the British

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Speaker 1: colonies in America was a doctor named John de Sequeira,

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Speaker 1: who was born in London but educated in Leyden, and

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Speaker 1: who Thomas Jefferson claimed had introduced tomatoes to Williamsburg, Virginia.

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Speaker 1: Jefferson also claimed that des Aquaira was fond of saying

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Speaker 1: that quote, a person who should eat a sufficient abundance

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Speaker 1: of these apples would never die. Now I don't know

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Speaker 1: if he meant that in, you know, with a touch

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Speaker 1: of irony, or if he was serious that though it

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Speaker 1: does make me think that, hey, what if the humble

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Speaker 1: tomato was actually the fruit of the tree of life,

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Speaker 1: Because there's always been a debate about in the story

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Speaker 1: of the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis,

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Speaker 1: what the fruits of these trees are actually supposed to be.

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Speaker 1: The Book of Genesis does not say, in this story,

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Speaker 1: what the fruits of the Tree of Life and the

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Speaker 1: Tree of the knowledge of good and evil we're supposed

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Speaker 1: to be a lot of people have assumed them to

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Speaker 1: be apples, but there it's that's not explicitly stated. So

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Speaker 1: people have proposed all kinds of answers to this question.

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Speaker 1: Maybe they're apples, maybe figs, maybe pomegranate, I think unsurprisingly,

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Speaker 1: Terrence McKenna said, the story was supposed to include a

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Speaker 1: reference to a mushroom, but what if the forbidden fruit

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Speaker 1: was a tomato? Yeah? I mean, I don't know that

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Speaker 1: that actually checks out with what we know about the

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Speaker 1: origins of the tomato, but I like the idea. No,

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Speaker 1: it would certainly not check out, like the authors of

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Speaker 1: the Book of Genesis would not have known what a

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Speaker 1: tomato was, right because it was from South America. But

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Speaker 1: Smith points out that many of the early promoters of

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Speaker 1: tomatoes in the colonies were doctors, and this is not

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Speaker 1: all that surprising since tomatoes were becoming accepted during the

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Speaker 1: eighteen century as a medical plant. For example, James Mees,

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Speaker 1: who published one of the first known recipes for tomato

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Speaker 1: ketchup around the year eighteen twelve. He was a medical

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Speaker 1: graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and he wrote about

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Speaker 1: how he was familiar with the culinary use of tomatoes

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Speaker 1: from French immigrants, who were probably creole refugees from Haiti.

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Speaker 1: But beginning in the eighteen twenties, American physicians started to

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Speaker 1: talk about tomatoes as a cure for what they called,

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Speaker 1: at the time billious diseases. These would be diseases that

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Speaker 1: were associated with disorders of the liver or bile, which

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Speaker 1: apparently sort of became a catch all category for diseases

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Speaker 1: involving jaundice, nausea, and vomiting along with fever. You know,

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Speaker 1: if there's something wrong with your guts, they thought you

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Speaker 1: had some kind of bile problem. Smith gives a number

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Speaker 1: of examples. One is a doctor Horatio Gates Spafford, who

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Speaker 1: wrote in the New York Farmer Quote that tomato sauce

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Speaker 1: removed headaches, a bad taste in the mouth, straightness of

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Speaker 1: the chest, painful heaviness in the liver, and improved the

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Speaker 1: action of the bowels. So hey, that's an all in one. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But probably the single largest influence on the tomatoes image

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Speaker 1: as a promoter of good health was a man named

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Speaker 1: Dr John Cook Bennett Robert I have attached a sketch

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Speaker 1: of him, and I noticed he he really kind of

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Speaker 1: looks a little bit like Adam Scott, but in a

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Speaker 1: strange military uniform with epaulets and a sword. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: can see the Adam Scott. I also see a little

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Speaker 1: bit of of of grandmof Tarke in here, so it's

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Speaker 1: kind of like a combination of the two for me. Absolutely. So.

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Speaker 1: Bennett lived from eighteen o four to eighteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 1: and he's actually probably best known for his short tenure

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Speaker 1: as an associate of Joseph Smith and an early leader

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Speaker 1: of the Latter Day Saints movement also known as the Mormons.

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Speaker 1: Before all that, Bennett was a doctor who Andrew Smith

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Speaker 1: claims founded one of the first medical diploma mills in

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Speaker 1: US history, So he's a diploma mill pioneer. Apparently, Bennett

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Speaker 1: would go around the Midwest selling medical degrees for ten

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Speaker 1: bucks apiece, and I'm sure that created some awesome doctors,

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Speaker 1: but it seems some people didn't really like that practice.

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Speaker 1: He fell under some criticism for for selling degrees like that,

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Speaker 1: so instead he accepted a position as a professor of

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Speaker 1: midwifery at Willoughby Medical College of Lake Erie University in Ohio,

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Speaker 1: where he jumped decisively onto the tomato train. This would

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Speaker 1: have been in the early to mid eighteen thirties, and

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Speaker 1: Smith writes as follows quote in his introductory lecture at Willoughby,

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Speaker 1: Bennett declared that tomatoes successfully treated diarrhea, violent bilious attacks,

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Speaker 1: and dyspepsia or indigestion. He recommended that tomatoes replaced alamel

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Speaker 1: because they were less harmful, predicting that quote, a chemical

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Speaker 1: extract will probably soon be obtained from it, which will

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Speaker 1: altogether supersede the use of calamel in the cure of diseases.

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Speaker 1: Tomatoes were also good for citizens traveling to the west

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Speaker 1: or to the south, as tomatoes would quote save them

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Speaker 1: from the danger attendant upon those violent bilious attacks to

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Speaker 1: which almost all unacclimated persons are liable. So basically saying

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Speaker 1: like travel diarrhea, right, I think so, I'm not quite

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Speaker 1: sure what so is. Was there an idea at the

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Speaker 1: time that if you go to the south or the west,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna have bilious attacks? I've never heard of that before,

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Speaker 1: but oh yeah, travel diarrhea would make sense as an interpretation.

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Speaker 1: But hey, just eat your tomatoes, you know, drink some

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Speaker 1: tomato sauce on the train, and you'll be right as

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Speaker 1: right now. Yeah Bash. To continue with with Smith's paragraph here,

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Speaker 1: quote Bennett urged all citizens to eat tomatoes raw, cooked,

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Speaker 1: or in catchup as they were quote the most healthy

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Speaker 1: article of all the material alimentary Benet included recipes for

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Speaker 1: tomato sauce, fried tomatoes, tomato pickles, tomato ketchup, and eating

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Speaker 1: raw tomatoes. I don't know what the recipe for eating

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Speaker 1: raw tomatoes is, but uh, to go back to earlier.

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Speaker 1: So so Bennett is setting tomatoes up as a foil

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Speaker 1: to this substance called calamel, and this reference to calamel here.

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Speaker 1: Calumel was a mineral form of mercury chloride that was

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Speaker 1: widely used as medicine in the nineteenth century, even though

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Speaker 1: nobody was quite sure how it was supposed to work.

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Speaker 1: Apparently primarily what it did was it was what they

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Speaker 1: called a purgative, basically a laxative um. But it would

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Speaker 1: also cause mercury poisoning, and it tended to kill the

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Speaker 1: tissue of the mouth and gums. So they're all these

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Speaker 1: stories of people taking calamel and like their teeth becoming

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Speaker 1: loose and their mouths kind of rotting, And even into

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Speaker 1: the twentieth century, alarmingly, calamel powder was used as a

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Speaker 1: as a powder to be applied to children's gums as

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Speaker 1: they were teething and led to these horrible conditions as

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Speaker 1: a result. Benjamin Rush, you know, the physician and one

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Speaker 1: of the so called founding fathers, he was a big

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Speaker 1: fan of calumel and uh promoted it. I think he

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Speaker 1: even tried to give some to Alexander Hamilton's at some point.

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Speaker 1: Calumel is just terrible medicine, extremely worth replacing with something else.

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Speaker 1: For example, calumel was often used to treat dysentery, but

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Speaker 1: as a diuretic itself, it could speed up the dehydration process.

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Speaker 1: So as you already have dysentery, you're also taking a

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Speaker 1: laxative and this this actually did kill some people. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: so this is definitely an example of a so called

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Speaker 1: medicine that is not only it's not just doing nothing,

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Speaker 1: it is it is actively heaping more harm on top

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Speaker 1: of whatever you're trying to treat. Yeah, I mean, I

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Speaker 1: guess I can't verify that it was never doing anything useful,

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Speaker 1: but I think it's absolutely clear that if it was

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Speaker 1: doing anything beneficial at all, the side effects were far

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Speaker 1: worse than whatever it was trying to treat. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: like other, you know, mercury based things, I think it

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Speaker 1: was just generally used as a cure all. It was

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Speaker 1: a panacea of the time. And anything that is supposed

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Speaker 1: to cure everything probably cures nothing. So anyway, Bennett is

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Speaker 1: offering up tomatoes as an alternative to calamel. He's saying, hey,

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Speaker 1: tomatoes can do all the stuff that calamel does, accept

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Speaker 1: it without all the side effects. And so Bennett was

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Speaker 1: on the tomato train. He was soon forced out of

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Speaker 1: his professorship, but he did not give up on his

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Speaker 1: tomato crusade, and in eighteen thirty five he repeated the

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Speaker 1: claims of his tomato panasy a lecture in dozens of outlets.

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Speaker 1: He wrote letters forwarding his address to farming and horticultural magazines,

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Speaker 1: to household magazines, um and he also wrote to other

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Speaker 1: influential Americans to convinced them of his claims, including somebody

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Speaker 1: named Constantine Rafinesque who was a medical botanist and who

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Speaker 1: promoted a lot of diet based cures. So he got

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Speaker 1: some followers other medical authorities, or at least people who

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Speaker 1: were somewhat perceived as such, jumped on the tomato train

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Speaker 1: with him. Uh So, I just wanted to list a

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Speaker 1: couple more of Bennett's other interesting tomato claims, as as

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Speaker 1: relayed by Andrew F. Smith. First of all, he said

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Speaker 1: that he had studied all of the ancient texts and

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Speaker 1: he his studies proved conclusively that there was nowhere on

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Speaker 1: Earth where the tomato was not indigenous. This was not true. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we we we I think we we properly debunked that

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Speaker 1: notion in the first episode. Uh. He also attacked the

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Speaker 1: process of staking tomatoes. So, Robert, you've got tomatoes growing

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Speaker 1: in your yard right now, right, what what do you

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Speaker 1: do to to get the vines standing upright? Oh, you

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Speaker 1: have to use like a metal cage and um. And

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Speaker 1: then as that they grow more and more gigantic, you

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Speaker 1: end up or these we have to end up reinforcing

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Speaker 1: that and and they see and if if you're not

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Speaker 1: totally on top of it, you'll still end up with

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Speaker 1: the vines falling onto the ground and tomatoes just sitting

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Speaker 1: there on the ground. Right. So, most people who grow

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Speaker 1: tomatoes today, they staked them in some way. You put

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Speaker 1: like a structure up and you allow the vine to

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Speaker 1: hang on that off in a metal cage or a

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Speaker 1: stick of some kind. But Bennett opposed steaking because he

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Speaker 1: claimed it was against God and against nature, and that

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Speaker 1: God had intended for tomato vines to lie on the ground.

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Speaker 1: If God had meant for them to be steaked, he

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Speaker 1: would have had them stand up on their own. Though

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Speaker 1: I think Bennett might be confused about the fact that

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Speaker 1: the tomato, of course, being a cultivated fruit that was

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Speaker 1: sort of created by humans in a way, The original

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Speaker 1: natural form of the tomato is a tiny berry, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's not this big, heavy, juicy thing that we eat today. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the fruit of the modern tomato, it's especially it's larger forms.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's gigantic, it's and it's breaking apart

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Speaker 1: with its own juices, you know, And it's ultimately quite

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Speaker 1: impressive the amount of biomass that these things produce enough

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Speaker 1: to wear. You know, when you first stake up that

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Speaker 1: tomato plant or or put a cage around it, you're like,

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Speaker 1: oh man, this feels like overkill. But then a month

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Speaker 1: two months later and uh and whatever structure you raised

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Speaker 1: might be struggling to keep all of that stuff up

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Speaker 1: in the air. Yeah, it turns into a precarious tower

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Speaker 1: of juice. Yes. Should we take a quick break before

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Speaker 1: we come back to discuss Spinnett's encounter with the LDS Church.

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Speaker 1: Let's do it, alright, we're back. We're talking about tomatoes

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Speaker 1: as a miracle cure that for just about anything that

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Speaker 1: at the very least was a preferable cure, all to

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Speaker 1: a calamel, which was a dangerous mercury based cure. All right. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And this claim was being made in the eight third

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Speaker 1: is by this doctor named John Cook Bennett. Now we

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Speaker 1: talked about how he started making all these claims about

303
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Speaker 1: tomatoes and their supposed health benefits and curative properties. Apparently

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Speaker 1: in eighteen forty, after he'd been making these tomato claims

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Speaker 1: for a while, he was working in Illinois and Bennett

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00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:22,040
Speaker 1: got involved with the Latter Day Saints movement. He became

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Speaker 1: friends with its leader Joseph Smith, and his claims about

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Speaker 1: the health benefits of tomatoes actually proved influential within the church.

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Speaker 1: But tragedy struck and in eighteen forty two Bennett got

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Speaker 1: excommunicated from the Latter Day Saints movement. He was excommunicated

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Speaker 1: by Joseph Smith himself after some kind of ambiguous scandal

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Speaker 1: involving a bunch of alleged sexual impropriety, including adultery and

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Speaker 1: maybe some kind of unsanctioned polygamy, with what Smith viewed

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Speaker 1: as as dubious spiritual or revelatory justifications. After Bennett was

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Speaker 1: banned from the church, he sort of went ballistic on

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Speaker 1: Joseph Smith and then published a bunch of allegations against

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Speaker 1: him in return. I think he actually accused Smith of

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Speaker 1: murder and fraud and a bunch of other things, and

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Speaker 1: then the two just win at each other in a

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Speaker 1: full scale pr war, Joseph Smith versus John Cook Bennett.

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Speaker 1: But the interesting thing was, apparently this pr war did

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Speaker 1: not undermine, uh, the the Latter Day Saints movements fondness

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Speaker 1: for tomatoes and acceptance of their ideas of the health

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Speaker 1: benefits that had come from Bennett. So Bennett's claims proved

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Speaker 1: very popular, and they caught on and were repeated in

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Speaker 1: lots of cookbooks, household manuals, farming and gardening journals, and

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Speaker 1: even in Latter Day Saints literature. Uh and so so

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Speaker 1: there was this whole tomato for health craze that caught

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Speaker 1: on big in the eighteen thirties and continued into the

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Speaker 1: eighteen forties. And uh Andrew F. Smith points out that

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Speaker 1: whatever his possibly dubious medical or moral credential, Bennett was

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Speaker 1: a genuinely, very talented promoter. It seems like he probably

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00:20:04,520 --> 00:20:07,040
Speaker 1: could have been great in the twentieth century in an

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00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:12,639
Speaker 1: advertising and marketing context, and that this contributed significantly to

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Speaker 1: the popularization and normalization of tomatoes in the United States.

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Speaker 1: Uh So, Bennett eventually predicted that you know you're you're

337
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Speaker 1: going to be able in the future to get the

338
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Speaker 1: health benefits of tomatoes without even having to eat a tomato.

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00:20:26,960 --> 00:20:29,840
Speaker 1: You can just take a miracle pill that will be

340
00:20:29,920 --> 00:20:33,800
Speaker 1: made from a from a tomato extract. And this prediction

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00:20:33,840 --> 00:20:37,879
Speaker 1: actually came true. In eighteen thirty five, a doctor A. J.

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Speaker 1: Holcomb of Glassboro, Alabama, started producing pills made out of

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Speaker 1: a tomato extract, and other pills also came on the market.

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Speaker 1: Smith quotes advertising for one brand of tomato pills from

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Speaker 1: a doctor named Dr. Miles, and it goes like this,

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Speaker 1: the tomato used as an article of refection is highly

347
00:20:58,800 --> 00:21:06,600
Speaker 1: medical highly medical and doubtless prevents many bilious attacks. We

348
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:09,840
Speaker 1: inferred from this fact the possibility of preparing from it

349
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Speaker 1: a medicine of great virtue. Dr Miles and his associates

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Speaker 1: have spent years and fortunes we understand and experimenting, and

351
00:21:18,840 --> 00:21:22,440
Speaker 1: finally have produced the compound extract. It has been used

352
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Speaker 1: by many in the city and out of it, and

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00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:29,600
Speaker 1: is as near we can learn, generally approved. But then

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Speaker 1: I thought this was interesting. Apparently so Smith's sites. Some

355
00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:35,399
Speaker 1: of the other packaging copy, and some of this copy

356
00:21:35,520 --> 00:21:41,320
Speaker 1: attacks calamel directly. So it says, for example, humane physicians

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Speaker 1: deplore the sad evils resulting from the mercurial practice, and

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Speaker 1: remember this because calamel is mercury chloride, and will gladly

359
00:21:50,800 --> 00:21:53,520
Speaker 1: hail the introduction of an article that can safely be

360
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:57,200
Speaker 1: substituted for calamel. And it goes on about how people

361
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Speaker 1: just know in their hearts that mercury is ad, even

362
00:22:00,640 --> 00:22:04,120
Speaker 1: if they can't explain why um, and that you may

363
00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:07,840
Speaker 1: have to choose between two evils of having of taking

364
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Speaker 1: mercury or having a torpid liver. But now they're saying, hey,

365
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Speaker 1: you don't have to have a torpid liver, and you

366
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Speaker 1: don't have to take mercury. You can fight your torpid

367
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Speaker 1: liver with tomato pills. Well, that would certainly be ideal

368
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Speaker 1: if you wanted to consume the medicinal essence of tomatoes

369
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Speaker 1: out of outside of tomato season. Oh yeah, I hadn't

370
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Speaker 1: thought about that. Yeah, you wouldn't. You wouldn't have to

371
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Speaker 1: go through eating a mealy one in the winter if

372
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Speaker 1: you wanted to fight your torpid liver. Um. But but

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Speaker 1: I will say that so while I think the tomato

374
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Speaker 1: pill probably had very little actual medical merit, especially for

375
00:22:43,760 --> 00:22:47,320
Speaker 1: the billious diseases that they were said to counteract, it

376
00:22:47,359 --> 00:22:50,800
Speaker 1: seems to me that simply by being offered as an

377
00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:55,800
Speaker 1: alternative to calamel, tomato pills or or just tomatoes might

378
00:22:55,800 --> 00:23:00,639
Speaker 1: have done significant medical good just because calamel was so bad.

379
00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:04,560
Speaker 1: Like so, if you're taking something that does nothing instead

380
00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:08,560
Speaker 1: of taking calamel and getting mercury poisoning and gangrenous flesh

381
00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:11,360
Speaker 1: and rotting gums and all that, that that actually does

382
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:14,920
Speaker 1: seem like an upgrade, even though this is probably not

383
00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:18,439
Speaker 1: useful as medicine. Plus, there's a hint of tomato to it,

384
00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:21,040
Speaker 1: so it's got that going for it. Oh yeah. I

385
00:23:21,040 --> 00:23:22,760
Speaker 1: mean I wonder if you you know, if you're actually

386
00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:26,479
Speaker 1: eating any tomato flesh, I wonder if if you can

387
00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:28,760
Speaker 1: get some placebo effect just from the fact that it

388
00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:31,719
Speaker 1: tastes nice. Maybe not, I don't know, that might be reaching,

389
00:23:32,640 --> 00:23:35,480
Speaker 1: but anyways, it's still the placebo effect is powerful. So

390
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:37,560
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's always going to be a part

391
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:40,880
Speaker 1: of any of these considerations. Oh absolutely, I mean that

392
00:23:40,880 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 1: that might be something that was at work in calamel

393
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:47,200
Speaker 1: and in tomato and tomato pills, except uh, you know,

394
00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:51,480
Speaker 1: the tomatoes aren't full of mercury um. So it seems

395
00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:55,760
Speaker 1: that some of the attacks against tomato pills did not

396
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 1: make the accurate charge that or at least I would

397
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 1: guess what is accurate it, which is that they probably

398
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:04,920
Speaker 1: just didn't do much, but instead accused them of, say,

399
00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:09,600
Speaker 1: being inferior to calamel and effectiveness. And there were some

400
00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:14,119
Speaker 1: that accused tomatoes and tomato pills of bringing on implausible

401
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:17,440
Speaker 1: side effects, side effects I would judge to be very implausible.

402
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 1: For example, uh, Andrew Smith sites one dcor Dio Lewis,

403
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 1: who was a popular lecturer and a practitioner of homeopathy,

404
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 1: who claimed to who claimed that the use of tomatoes

405
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 1: and their extract would cause quote piles tender and bleeding gums,

406
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:40,119
Speaker 1: teeth set on edge, and loss of teeth due to salivation,

407
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: which which sounds closer to the actual effects of calamel.

408
00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 1: But anyway, despite these attacks, tomato pills proved very popular,

409
00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:52,439
Speaker 1: and by eighteen forty, Smith notes that tomato extract was

410
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 1: listed as an ingredient in lots of supposed panaceas, even

411
00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:59,359
Speaker 1: pills that weren't just tomato pills. You know, you know

412
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:03,920
Speaker 1: this is doctor, doctor Rotten Bottoms, you know, excellent cure

413
00:25:03,960 --> 00:25:08,280
Speaker 1: all that would list tomato extract as one of the ingredients,

414
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:11,200
Speaker 1: and this gave rise at the time to the slogan

415
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:14,840
Speaker 1: tomato pills will cure all your ills. There you go,

416
00:25:14,880 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: at rhymes. Can't argue with that, right uh. And just

417
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 1: as an interesting side note, Smith includes a few other

418
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:26,399
Speaker 1: bizarre claims made against tomatoes, including one accusation. This is

419
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:29,320
Speaker 1: from the later nineteenth century, so not the eighteen forties

420
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:32,119
Speaker 1: period we're talking about now, but later in the century

421
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 1: there was a doctor John Hilton who reported that quote,

422
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: tomato cells were identical to cancer cells under the microscope,

423
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 1: and that there was much cancer where tomatoes were eaten.

424
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:48,640
Speaker 1: This does not appear to be true in any way.

425
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: That sounds real. This This sounds like when um Chancellor

426
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:56,119
Speaker 1: Palpatine is telling Anakin that the the Jedi and the

427
00:25:56,160 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 1: Sith are virtually alike in every way. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,

428
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: And I wonder like, did this guy owned stock in

429
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:08,200
Speaker 1: a Calumel company? Yeah, But anyway, by the mid eighteen hundreds,

430
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:10,760
Speaker 1: basically at this point, there's no going back, Like tomatoes

431
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:17,440
Speaker 1: had become thoroughly uh normalized and a universally profitable crop

432
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:21,240
Speaker 1: pretty much in a mainstay of American dining tables. So

433
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 1: just over the course of a few decades. Really, Smith

434
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:28,840
Speaker 1: makes the case that even though the the health craze

435
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:32,159
Speaker 1: for tomatoes was probably somewhat baseless or at least you

436
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:35,320
Speaker 1: know that if if there are health benefits to tomatoes,

437
00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:40,119
Speaker 1: it wasn't exactly the benefits that these people were claiming, um,

438
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:44,199
Speaker 1: but that this health craze did help cement tomatoes as

439
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:48,520
Speaker 1: a universally accepted and extremely popular food in America and

440
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:51,880
Speaker 1: counteract some of the lingering concerns that might have been

441
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:55,800
Speaker 1: present among some people about their toxicity. Yeah, if you're

442
00:26:55,840 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 1: gonna basically if you're gonna take up some sort of

443
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 1: crazy new diet or some sort of weird medication. It's

444
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: better that it's not actual actually poison, right yes. Now.

445
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:10,480
Speaker 1: On the other hand, on the subject of the health

446
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:13,920
Speaker 1: benefits of tomatoes, it is worth pointing out that there

447
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 1: are nutrients present in tomatoes that have been investigated as

448
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 1: possibly beneficial to health. Just one major example is lycopene,

449
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:26,640
Speaker 1: like apene, is a carotenoid that serves as a pigment,

450
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:30,320
Speaker 1: giving the tomato it's pinkish reddish color. Uh. And there

451
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,880
Speaker 1: are other carotenoid pigments that are nutritionally relevant, for example,

452
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:37,439
Speaker 1: beta carotene, the pigment that gives carrots and some of

453
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:41,240
Speaker 1: their vegetables their orange color, that gets metabolized in the

454
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 1: body and turns into vitamin A, which is of course

455
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 1: a an essential nutrient. So dietary carotenoids are very important

456
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:52,879
Speaker 1: for supplying the body with compounds that it can't synthesize internally.

457
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:56,440
Speaker 1: And there's long been a debate in the scientific literature

458
00:27:56,480 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 1: about what the health benefits of tomatoes and specifically lycopine

459
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,400
Speaker 1: might be. So I was trying to check and see

460
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 1: if there was a good literature review and meta analysis

461
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:10,280
Speaker 1: of of all the studies out there on on the

462
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 1: possible effects of lycopine um the health effects of lycopine,

463
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:17,879
Speaker 1: and I found an article from seventeen published in the

464
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:22,960
Speaker 1: journal Atherosclerosis by chang at All called Tomato and Lycopine

465
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:28,400
Speaker 1: Supplementation and Cardiovascular Risk Factors a systemic review and meta analysis,

466
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:32,439
Speaker 1: and essentially the authors here found that quote consuming tomato

467
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 1: and tomato products is associated with potential beneficial effects to health.

468
00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 1: Current evidence indicates that consuming tomato improves some blood lipids,

469
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: blood pressure, and endothelial function. Tomato consumption may potentially reduce

470
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 1: the risk of cardiovascular diseases and mortality. And finally, the

471
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: effects of consuming tomato on novel biomarkers of vascular risk

472
00:28:55,840 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: needs further investigation. So uh, it seems like unfortunate. Like

473
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: many things studies into the health effects of food, there

474
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 1: have been a lot of conflicting results over the years,

475
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:08,040
Speaker 1: so the picture is not always totally clear. But it

476
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 1: looks like on balance, the existing research indicates there probably

477
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: are some good health effects that follow from consumption of lycopine,

478
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 1: a tomato product, and tomatoes in general, and a lot

479
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 1: of it has to do with cardiovascular health and blood

480
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: lipids things like that. Well, it's it's no It should

481
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 1: come as no surprise that not only can you still

482
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 1: buy tomato pills from a number of different um companies,

483
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 1: you can also buy lycopene supplements from just about everybody

484
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: who is in the business of making supplements. Right. Well,

485
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 1: I would say, based on the thing on the study

486
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 1: that I decided, we are not advising you to go

487
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 1: out and buy lycopine based supplements. You know, that's the

488
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Consult with your doctor about that. But

489
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 1: it looks like on balance it's probably more likely than

490
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 1: not that lycopine does something beneficial in a cardiovascular sense.

491
00:29:56,760 --> 00:29:59,480
Speaker 1: But anyway, to come back to the report by Andrew F. Smith,

492
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:02,719
Speaker 1: one of the things that he cites, I don't have

493
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 1: this quote pulled out, but I remember he cites a

494
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 1: doctor writing in the late eighteen hundreds who said, look,

495
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 1: you know, all these claims about how the tomatoes affect

496
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 1: the liver and the bile and all that there, they

497
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 1: probably have no basis in reality. But just go ahead

498
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 1: and eat tomatoes because they're delicious. You don't need to

499
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: consult your liver doctor. Just fed them. Oh but Robert,

500
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 1: I have a question as we transition to our to

501
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:30,959
Speaker 1: our next little segment here a question that I wonder

502
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 1: if you have thoughts on or if your your house

503
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 1: adheres to a set of conventional wisdom about And that

504
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: question is should you ever refrigerate a tomato? We are

505
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:46,600
Speaker 1: a non refrigeration house for tomatoes. Now, I don't think

506
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 1: this is a rule that I knew about or had

507
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 1: probably learned earlier in my life, but it was one

508
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 1: that my wife knew, and so it's it's one we've

509
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: stuck to. Yeah, that that that tomatoes they go out

510
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 1: on the counter or the window. They do not go

511
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 1: in the refrigerator, though occasionally we'll get like I say,

512
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 1: I do subscribe to a particular boxed meal company, and

513
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 1: they'll send the ingredients in a bag, and I'll generally

514
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 1: just stick that bag in the refrigerator, and sometimes it

515
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 1: has tomatoes in there, and so the tomatoes will wind

516
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 1: up being refrigerated. But like we said earlier, those are,

517
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 1: you know, shipped grocery store tomatoes. So perhaps nothing all

518
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 1: that wonderful is lost in their being in the fridge.

519
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: But then again, I don't have any I don't have

520
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:34,120
Speaker 1: any science backing any of this up. This is just

521
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:37,920
Speaker 1: the way. This is the way, and that's what we do. Well.

522
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 1: That's how so much kitchen knowledge is, isn't it? Like

523
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 1: canonical kitchen wisdom is full of these rules that you

524
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 1: have no idea whether they have any basis in fact.

525
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 1: Maybe they're informed by good empirical scientific research or by

526
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,600
Speaker 1: by real experience, or maybe they're just a hunch some

527
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 1: chef had a hundred years ago and it's been repeated

528
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 1: from chef to chef ever since. Yeah, Like ultimately, I

529
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: don't know. It could be that if you keep the

530
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 1: tomatoes out on the countertop, it will keep demons out

531
00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:07,239
Speaker 1: of your house. That that could be the excuse as

532
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 1: far as I know. Uh yeah, I mean it could

533
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 1: be one of those things like ceiling in the juices.

534
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 1: You know, like this totally not true that searing meat

535
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 1: seals and the juices. I mean, you know, searing meatmates

536
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 1: taste better. The ceiling in the juices is not real.

537
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: But it does make me think of one of my

538
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:28,000
Speaker 1: favorite Onion headlines of all time, which was it was

539
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 1: something like, uh, study finds average father thinks about ceiling

540
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 1: in the juices four to five hours a day. Um.

541
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: You know, this question reminds me a little bit of

542
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 1: our our invention interview with Jeff Beach Bumberry H And

543
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 1: I believe you asked the question about uh, lemon and

544
00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 1: lime lime juice, in particular about fresh squeeze lime juice,

545
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 1: and he mentioned that some mixologists argue that it's better

546
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: if the lime juice has been squeeze east but then

547
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 1: placed in the refrigerator for a certain amount of time

548
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 1: for a short period. I think he said that, like

549
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:08,360
Speaker 1: some mixologists think that the line like citrus juice is

550
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:11,959
Speaker 1: better after being refrigerated for like a day or something

551
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 1: like that, but then after after that it starts getting bad.

552
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 1: You have to go back to that invention interview to

553
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 1: to to hear the exact numbers, but it was something

554
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 1: in that ballpark. But anyway, so to bring it back

555
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 1: to tomatoes, for a long time, the conventional wisdom has

556
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:30,320
Speaker 1: been to go right along with your household rule. Uh,

557
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: it's that you never put a raw tomato in the fridge.

558
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 1: It ruins the fresh tomato flavor, it turns the texture

559
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: meally that you know, the chefs would just say never

560
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 1: ever do it, And it turns out there's actually been

561
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: a lot of research on this. Uh So I'm gonna

562
00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: try to give you the basic rundown as best I

563
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 1: can and summarizing some of the work of other people. So,

564
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 1: first of all, it is true that there are some

565
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 1: measurable chemical changes that take place when a tomato is

566
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:01,600
Speaker 1: stored at fridge temperature for an umber of days instead

567
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: of at room temperature. Just one example, as a study

568
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:09,280
Speaker 1: by Jong at All published in Proceedings of the National

569
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:14,720
Speaker 1: Academy of Sciences in called chilling induced tomato flavor loss

570
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 1: is associated with altered volatile synthesis and transient changes in

571
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:22,239
Speaker 1: DNA methylation. And so basically what they found is if

572
00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:24,239
Speaker 1: you take a tomato, you pick it, and then you

573
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:26,719
Speaker 1: chill it for a week or so, and then you

574
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 1: compare that to a fresh pick tomato, the sugar and

575
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:34,440
Speaker 1: acid content will mostly be unchanged, but there will be

576
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 1: a marked decline in what they call certain flavor and

577
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:42,799
Speaker 1: aroma compounds. These are volatile molecules that are responsible for

578
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:46,280
Speaker 1: a lot of the distinctive tomato we smell and taste.

579
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:49,399
Speaker 1: And they determine that this happened because when you take

580
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:51,719
Speaker 1: a tomato and you pluck it and you store it

581
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:55,160
Speaker 1: in cold storage for a week or whatever. This causes

582
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: a down regulation in the expression of specific genes in

583
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:02,719
Speaker 1: the tomatoes cell. And this this down regulation of these

584
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 1: genes slows or halts the production of these flavor and

585
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:11,120
Speaker 1: aroma compounds. And one of the authors, Harry J. Clee,

586
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 1: speaking to the New York Times, explain their findings as follows. Quote,

587
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 1: remove the violins and the woodwinds, you still have noise,

588
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:23,279
Speaker 1: but it's not the same. Add back just the violins,

589
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:26,400
Speaker 1: and it still isn't right. You need that orchestra of

590
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:29,359
Speaker 1: thirty or more chemicals in the right balance to give

591
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: you a good tomato. And I think, you know, there's

592
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 1: something to that, Like the rapturous experience of eating a

593
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: really good tomato is this complex combination of kind of

594
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 1: like earthy, grassy, juicy, you know, smells and tastes that

595
00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 1: all come together, as as the sort of accents on

596
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:53,360
Speaker 1: the basic flavors of sweetness and sourness and savoriness that

597
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:56,359
Speaker 1: are there in the tomatoes flesh. But there are some

598
00:35:56,520 --> 00:36:00,799
Speaker 1: serious reasons for not just taking that research and then

599
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:03,920
Speaker 1: running straight to the conclusion. Okay, then never put your

600
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:07,600
Speaker 1: tomato in the refrigerator, because this study is looking at

601
00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 1: sort of one narrow question and one narrow type of comparison. So,

602
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 1: first of all, if you're buying a tomato at the

603
00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:20,280
Speaker 1: grocery store, that tomato has almost definitely already been chilled

604
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 1: for some time during transport and storage. Because if you

605
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:26,840
Speaker 1: think for a minute about the brute physical necessities of

606
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:29,840
Speaker 1: the food supply chain, uh, and you think about the

607
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:33,919
Speaker 1: delicacy of an actually ripe tomato, how would how would

608
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 1: you harvest actually ripe tomatoes at scale and then pack

609
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,239
Speaker 1: them and ship them to their destinations. I mean, you

610
00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 1: couldn't do it. A truck or even a crate packed

611
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 1: full of plump, ripe tomatoes would just be this slurry

612
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:49,279
Speaker 1: of moldy pulp by the time it got where it

613
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 1: was going, right, Yeah, yeah, I mean your your tomatoes

614
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:56,760
Speaker 1: are likely coming from California or Florida. I think Indiana

615
00:36:56,800 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 1: and Ohio were also up there in the top five. Yeah.

616
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 1: So often large scale tomato agriculture involves harvesting tomatoes that

617
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:08,399
Speaker 1: are still relatively hard and green and then packing them

618
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:12,279
Speaker 1: in cold storage and exposing them to ethylene gas under

619
00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: cold storage, which is a gas that's naturally produced by

620
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:17,840
Speaker 1: lots of fruits as they ripen, but exposure to the

621
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 1: gas causes ripening in the storage after they've been picked,

622
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:25,120
Speaker 1: and that's how the tomatoes turn red, uh, you know,

623
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:28,040
Speaker 1: to be read when you buy them at the grocery store. Now,

624
00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:29,960
Speaker 1: a lot of people are going to say that this

625
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 1: process is one reason why tomatoes you get at the

626
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 1: grocery store are often extremely inferior to tomatoes that you

627
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 1: would get at a farmer's market or that you would

628
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 1: grow yourself or get from a friend's garden. That the

629
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 1: process is just totally different in terms of the flavor

630
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:48,360
Speaker 1: and texture that it produces when compared to a tomato

631
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:51,319
Speaker 1: that actually ripens on the vine. And some of these

632
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 1: same concerns driving the supply and transport process have also

633
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:58,759
Speaker 1: driven the selection of particular tomato cultivars that are not

634
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 1: necessarily the best eat because when a farmer is selecting

635
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 1: what breed of tomato to grow, they don't only have

636
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:08,560
Speaker 1: to consider what's going to taste the best to the consumer.

637
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 1: They have to consider what can I actually get to

638
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:14,800
Speaker 1: the buyer intact? Yeah, exactly. It needs to survive the

639
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 1: journey and and and look like something that the the

640
00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:21,919
Speaker 1: the customer will actually purchase on the other end, right,

641
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 1: But if you're able to get your hands on an

642
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:27,799
Speaker 1: unrefrigerated tomato out of a garden or maybe at a

643
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:32,040
Speaker 1: farmer's market or something. Uh. The authors here of this paper,

644
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:34,960
Speaker 1: at least they recommend not storing it in the fridge

645
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:37,800
Speaker 1: before you eat it if you want peak tomato rapture,

646
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:41,799
Speaker 1: And that advice might be good advice, But there are

647
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:45,359
Speaker 1: a number of researchers who would say that this this

648
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 1: type of answer is actually looking at the question a

649
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:50,400
Speaker 1: little too narrowly and in a way that's not always

650
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:54,640
Speaker 1: useful to the actual tomato consumer. For example, there are

651
00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:57,279
Speaker 1: a couple of really great in depth explorations of this

652
00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 1: question on the Serious Eats website by Daniel Gritzer and

653
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 1: Kenji Lopez Alt, and they did a couple of investigations

654
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:08,080
Speaker 1: over this over the past few years, and so they

655
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:11,840
Speaker 1: did controlled experiments with blind taste tests on multiple ways

656
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:16,280
Speaker 1: of storing tomatoes refrigerated, unrefrigerated for different periods of time

657
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 1: and so forth, and they concluded that basically, yes, the

658
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 1: absolute pinnacle tomato experience is probably letting the tomato ripen

659
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:27,720
Speaker 1: on the vine then eating it. Immediately at its moment

660
00:39:27,719 --> 00:39:31,720
Speaker 1: of peak ripeness, with no refrigeration on the vine like

661
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: like a goat man, with the juice flowing down your chest.

662
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:39,480
Speaker 1: Don't use your hands at all, just face. Yes, but

663
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:41,439
Speaker 1: but but they say, you know, most of the time,

664
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 1: that's not how you're going to be eating a tomato. Uh.

665
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:46,800
Speaker 1: And they point out that letting a tomato go past

666
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 1: its point of peak ripeness is also very bad for

667
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:53,000
Speaker 1: flavor and texture, and in fact, we'll ruin the flavor

668
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 1: and texture significantly more than refrigerating the tomato will. And

669
00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 1: also a lot of times they taste testers even notice

670
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:03,520
Speaker 1: all that big of a difference between a tomato that

671
00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:07,040
Speaker 1: had been refrigerated and one that hadn't. It seemed to vary.

672
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:08,920
Speaker 1: So they came up with a set of guidelines. They

673
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:13,720
Speaker 1: go like this, if your tomato has never been refrigerated,

674
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:15,759
Speaker 1: you know, so it's out of somebody's yard or a

675
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 1: good farmer's market seller or something like that, then you

676
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:22,000
Speaker 1: want to store it at room temperature until it's ripe,

677
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:24,840
Speaker 1: and then either eat it immediately or put it in

678
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:27,440
Speaker 1: the fridge, and then you take it out of the

679
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 1: fridge when you're ready to eat. It, and of course

680
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:31,640
Speaker 1: storing it in the fridge will allow it to stay

681
00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:34,160
Speaker 1: at peak ripeness longer than it would store it at

682
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 1: room temperature. But they do say it's important if you

683
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:40,759
Speaker 1: have refrigerated a tomato, let it come up to room

684
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:43,280
Speaker 1: temperature before you eat it, because eating a cold tomato

685
00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:47,480
Speaker 1: is not very pleasant. Okay, that's good. That's good. But

686
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:50,320
Speaker 1: then the second half of this is if your tomato

687
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: has already been refrigerated, and this would apply to almost

688
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:56,360
Speaker 1: any tomato you would get at a grocery store or

689
00:40:56,360 --> 00:41:00,560
Speaker 1: any kind of mass agricultural vendor in that ace. If

690
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:02,920
Speaker 1: it's already ripe, put it in the fridge until you're

691
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 1: ready to eat it. If it's not ripe yet, let

692
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 1: it ripen at room temperature. Then once it's ripe, move

693
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 1: it to the fridge until you're ready to eat it,

694
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:12,880
Speaker 1: and once again, let it come up to room temper

695
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:15,239
Speaker 1: before you actually put it in your mouth. And I

696
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:18,279
Speaker 1: think I really respect the work they put in on

697
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: coming up with these guidelines, and uh, thus saith the Lord. Okay,

698
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:27,279
Speaker 1: I got a second tomato storage trick, also confirmed through

699
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 1: empirical testing by Kenji Lopez Ald. So you know how

700
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 1: tomatoes often lose juiciness and partially desiccate as they sit

701
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 1: out and rest. You you've probably seen them, like on

702
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 1: the tops near where the stem is, they'll get kind

703
00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:43,200
Speaker 1: of wrinkly and start to sag. Yes, this is partially

704
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:47,319
Speaker 1: due to moisture evaporating out of the tomato as it

705
00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 1: rests Now. The skin of the tomato is actually very

706
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:53,840
Speaker 1: good at keeping moisture in, but the weak point is

707
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:57,800
Speaker 1: actually the stem area, a little depression where the tomato

708
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 1: connected to the vine. And so there's an easy way

709
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:05,279
Speaker 1: to prevent moisture escaping through this area, and it is

710
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:09,399
Speaker 1: to store tomatoes upside down on a flat surface, so

711
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 1: the stem area is sort of sealed off by the

712
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:15,239
Speaker 1: by the soft flesh of the tomato around it, or

713
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 1: in fact, if you want to go farther, you can

714
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:19,400
Speaker 1: even do what Kenji did to test this theory about

715
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:22,759
Speaker 1: where the moisture evaporates from. He shows in a video

716
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:25,319
Speaker 1: that he put a little piece of tape over the

717
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: stem depression to seal it off, and this also kept

718
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 1: the tomato from losing juice over time. So if you

719
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:34,320
Speaker 1: want your tomatoes to stay ju see a storm upside

720
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 1: down or or maybe even give him a little little

721
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: sealed hat. All right, all right, on that note, we're

722
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:42,399
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break, but when we come

723
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:51,880
Speaker 1: back we will explore the topic of off world tomatoes. Alright,

724
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:55,320
Speaker 1: we're back. So at this point, tomatoes that spread pretty

725
00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 1: much everywhere. As Michael Pollen pointed out in his book Cooked,

726
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:02,719
Speaker 1: the tomato is perhaps the most important vegetable crop in

727
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:06,400
Speaker 1: the world, with onions coming in second. As we discussed

728
00:43:06,400 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 1: in our invention episode about Ketchup the culinary invention of Ketchup,

729
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:15,360
Speaker 1: so Europeans tried to recreate Asian sauces with an imported

730
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 1: fruit from the America's and then this weird concoction eventually

731
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 1: returns to Asia as well. I was reading an article

732
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 1: titled Tomatoes and Chinese Cooking by Rhonda Parkinson for the

733
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:29,839
Speaker 1: Spruce Eat site, and the author mentions that even though

734
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:32,719
Speaker 1: tomatoes only arrived in China roughly a hundred to a

735
00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 1: hundred fifty years ago, they've managed to carve out their

736
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:38,920
Speaker 1: own niche in certain Chinese cuisines, much in the same

737
00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:41,320
Speaker 1: way that chili peppers have found a home in numerous

738
00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 1: Asian cuisines. Examples of popular dishes and I don't think

739
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:47,920
Speaker 1: I've had any of these, but it was interesting to

740
00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 1: these were pointed out. One is tomato egg drop soup,

741
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: and the other is a dish called tomato beef, which

742
00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:59,560
Speaker 1: is apparently a stir fry with thick tomato wedges, like

743
00:43:59,600 --> 00:44:04,680
Speaker 1: really big thick pieces beef at it and then oyster sauce. Oh,

744
00:44:04,719 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 1: that sounds like a delicious umami bomb. Of course, because

745
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:12,840
Speaker 1: a lot of natural Asian flavorings are are big umami bombs,

746
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 1: like soy sauce or oyster sauce. They bring a lot

747
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:18,719
Speaker 1: of the glutamate based flavors, but tomatoes are also rich

748
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:21,359
Speaker 1: imglutamates and have that rich eu mammy flavor. So yeah,

749
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:25,600
Speaker 1: that sounds like a savory delight. It's interesting to to

750
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:29,400
Speaker 1: contemplate this kind of thing too, where tomatoes are recent

751
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 1: enough um arrival in Chinese cuisine that they haven't completely

752
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 1: like they still have, you know, they're still completely taken

753
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 1: over or anything like that, but but looking at where

754
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 1: they're utilized first, like where the successes for the tomato

755
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:48,320
Speaker 1: as opposed to something like um Italian cuisine, which it

756
00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:50,560
Speaker 1: really can be kind of difficult to imagine for for

757
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 1: many of us anyway to imagine something like Italian cuisine

758
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:55,920
Speaker 1: without the tomato, right, because that's where a lot of

759
00:44:55,920 --> 00:44:59,200
Speaker 1: our minds immediately go. Yeah. Well, I would say that's

760
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:02,920
Speaker 1: especially true of like Italian American cuisine, Like a lot

761
00:45:02,920 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 1: of the Italian dishes that became especially popular among the

762
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:11,000
Speaker 1: Italian Americans were tomato forward. Yeah. So here's a big question.

763
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 1: If tomatoes have essentially taken over our planet, my tomatoes

764
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:20,200
Speaker 1: go beyond being a mere international sensation. Could they become

765
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 1: an interplanetary sensation? Yes, the answer is yes, yea. When

766
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:28,000
Speaker 1: the aliens get here, they're gonna we're gonna be like, oh,

767
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 1: thank you for coming to like uplift our society and

768
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:33,359
Speaker 1: share your technology, and they're like, get out of the way.

769
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:36,799
Speaker 1: We're here for your tomatoes, We're here for the golden apples. Yes.

770
00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:40,320
Speaker 1: So a lot of this come back to the basic question,

771
00:45:40,360 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: all right, if we're you know what we've discussed before.

772
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:45,680
Speaker 1: A lot of a lot of very intelligent people have

773
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 1: argued that the long term survival of the human race

774
00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:52,800
Speaker 1: depends on us branching out and establishing ourselves in other worlds.

775
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:57,480
Speaker 1: But part of establishing ourselves in other worlds means first

776
00:45:57,480 --> 00:45:59,480
Speaker 1: of all, just being able to survive there, being able

777
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:03,600
Speaker 1: to eat there, and then ultimately being able to survive

778
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 1: there there in a way where we're not reliant upon

779
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 1: a robust supply chain from Earth. Yes, the cost of

780
00:46:12,040 --> 00:46:15,600
Speaker 1: getting the food into Orbit alone is already incredibly high,

781
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:18,200
Speaker 1: compounded then by the cost of getting it the rest

782
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 1: of the way, for example, to a lunar colony, or

783
00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:24,880
Speaker 1: to a Martian colony. That means you're gonna have to

784
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:28,399
Speaker 1: grow your food at your lunar or Martian colony. Uh,

785
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 1: at least to supplement umu costly deliveries, if not sustain

786
00:46:35,239 --> 00:46:38,880
Speaker 1: colonists completely. Oh boy, I can't wait to subsist entirely

787
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 1: on a diet of like protein that's created from algae

788
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:46,759
Speaker 1: and incubators. Well, remember in the Silent Running, that's just

789
00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:50,400
Speaker 1: what Brustern's crewmates were happy with. They're like, oh, this

790
00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 1: is great, these cubes of of of of whatever. You know,

791
00:46:53,719 --> 00:46:58,200
Speaker 1: that grown strangeness is perfectly fine. Meanwhile, he's holding like

792
00:46:58,280 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 1: a cultivated banana. This like the strangest product of modern

793
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 1: agricultural science, and he's like, this is nature, all right.

794
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:12,040
Speaker 1: So obviously there are a number of possibilities here. Including

795
00:47:12,080 --> 00:47:14,520
Speaker 1: what you just mentioned, like figuring out, like what what

796
00:47:14,719 --> 00:47:17,399
Speaker 1: grows the best that we could possibly eat, and let's

797
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:21,719
Speaker 1: make that be our diet um. But you know, basically,

798
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:23,719
Speaker 1: I guess the first possibility that comes to mind in

799
00:47:23,800 --> 00:47:26,680
Speaker 1: terms of like growing things in another world is that

800
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:29,520
Speaker 1: we just bring everything with us, Right. Certainly we need

801
00:47:29,560 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 1: to bring the seeds, But then when you get into

802
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:34,520
Speaker 1: the issue of water and soil, things get a bit

803
00:47:34,560 --> 00:47:37,640
Speaker 1: difficult because again, the cost of even bringing this stuff

804
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:40,719
Speaker 1: into orbit is so high. Right, So on one hand,

805
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:44,240
Speaker 1: we could potentially go the way of hydroponics and grow

806
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:48,319
Speaker 1: without soil. Uh, that's one less thing we'd have to

807
00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:50,279
Speaker 1: bring up with us, right, and perhaps we'd even be

808
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:53,440
Speaker 1: able to make use of local water. In fact, a

809
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:58,279
Speaker 1: paper by Elgin and Union published in the Bulleton of

810
00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:02,239
Speaker 1: the American Astronomical Society argues that hydroponics might be our

811
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:05,760
Speaker 1: best option. And I'll share more on on their argument

812
00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:09,800
Speaker 1: here in a bit. But what about lunar or Martian soil?

813
00:48:09,960 --> 00:48:13,400
Speaker 1: What's preventing us from growing our crops just in that stuff?

814
00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:16,439
Speaker 1: You know, Hey, there is there is there dirt on Mars?

815
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:19,120
Speaker 1: Is there dirt on the moon? Why don't I just

816
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:22,160
Speaker 1: grow some tomatoes in that. Okay, I guess a major

817
00:48:22,200 --> 00:48:25,239
Speaker 1: problem would be the lack of moisture, but there may

818
00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 1: be other problems as well. Well. All right, yeah, so

819
00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:30,239
Speaker 1: I guess that. Think of it this way. It's like,

820
00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 1: if you're bringing water, you're bringing seeds. Could you just

821
00:48:33,920 --> 00:48:37,040
Speaker 1: go out get a big bucket load of of martian

822
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:41,520
Speaker 1: or lunar regular, bring that inside. Uh, adds seeds, add water,

823
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:44,960
Speaker 1: and enjoy your your bumper crop. I don't know. Actually

824
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:48,239
Speaker 1: that's a very good question. Uh. The answer is no.

825
00:48:49,200 --> 00:48:51,719
Speaker 1: But it becomes then a question of what could you

826
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: do to the soil and uh And on this subject,

827
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:56,840
Speaker 1: I was looking at another paper. This is the twenty

828
00:48:56,880 --> 00:49:00,279
Speaker 1: nineteen paper titled Crop Growth in Viability of Sea on

829
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:03,719
Speaker 1: Mars and Moon Soil Simulants by Fame link at All

830
00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:07,399
Speaker 1: published in Open Agriculture, and basically the paper sets out

831
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:10,680
Speaker 1: to consider whether martian or lunar regular could be used

832
00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 1: to grow crops now. First of all, on the hydroponics front,

833
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 1: the authors here argue that while hydroponics is certainly promising,

834
00:49:19,360 --> 00:49:24,160
Speaker 1: you still need a growing medium. For instance, mineral wool

835
00:49:24,239 --> 00:49:26,799
Speaker 1: is often used. It's also known as rock wool, which

836
00:49:26,840 --> 00:49:29,680
Speaker 1: is a brand name. This is stuff that's also used

837
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 1: in insulation, filtration and soundproofing, but when used as a

838
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:36,840
Speaker 1: growing medium, it has to be replaced after one or

839
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:42,080
Speaker 1: more growing cycles. Um. Furthermore, not every crop takes to

840
00:49:42,200 --> 00:49:45,919
Speaker 1: mineral wool all that well, so in other words, you'd

841
00:49:45,960 --> 00:49:50,160
Speaker 1: still potentially have to ship uh this growing medium out

842
00:49:50,360 --> 00:49:54,040
Speaker 1: to your colony and depend on that supply chain. So

843
00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:57,320
Speaker 1: they ultimately contend that aero ponics, in which plants grow

844
00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:00,239
Speaker 1: in an air or missed environment without soil as a

845
00:50:00,239 --> 00:50:04,719
Speaker 1: growing medium. Um. You know that that could be a

846
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:08,240
Speaker 1: strong possibility, and certainly that's something that NASA sponsored plant

847
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:10,920
Speaker 1: experiments have been looking into for quite a while and

848
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:14,800
Speaker 1: with good reason to. According to NASA, aero ponics systems

849
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:19,840
Speaker 1: can reduce water usage, by of fertilizer usage, by in

850
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:25,040
Speaker 1: pesticide usage by all while maximizing crop yields, and some

851
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 1: crops like tomatoes, have been shown to benefit from increased

852
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:32,400
Speaker 1: mineral envitamin uptake via aero ponics. According to a two

853
00:50:32,440 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 1: thousand seven NASA released, Tomato growers traditionally start their plants

854
00:50:36,560 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 1: in pots weight twenty eight days or so before transplanting

855
00:50:40,040 --> 00:50:43,959
Speaker 1: them into the ground. However, using an aero ponics system.

856
00:50:44,040 --> 00:50:46,840
Speaker 1: They can then transplant them from a growing chamber to

857
00:50:46,920 --> 00:50:49,760
Speaker 1: the soil in just ten days, and this apparently allows

858
00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:52,959
Speaker 1: growers to produce six tomato crops uh cycles per year

859
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 1: instead of the traditional one or two crop cycles. I

860
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:59,879
Speaker 1: believe aeroponics have been used in the I s s all,

861
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:02,319
Speaker 1: do you haven't they? Yeah? I believe so there've been

862
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 1: There have been certainly been some experiments with aeroponics'. Like

863
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:08,280
Speaker 1: I say, it's something that it's not new in terms

864
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:12,680
Speaker 1: of uh NASA research uh looking at that as a

865
00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:16,640
Speaker 1: solution for growing things in orbit or certainly ultimately on

866
00:51:16,760 --> 00:51:20,360
Speaker 1: other worlds. Okay, but what about actually using the soil

867
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 1: on another rocky body like the lunar or Martian regular eath. Okay. Well,

868
00:51:24,640 --> 00:51:27,480
Speaker 1: in that paper by Elgin and Guni, and they point

869
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 1: out that there are a number of issues with the

870
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:33,319
Speaker 1: Martian regular. For example, they would have to be worked out.

871
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:37,399
Speaker 1: So for starters, the regular is full of perclorates. These

872
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:42,960
Speaker 1: are chemical compounds containing the perclorate ion which are harmful

873
00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:46,000
Speaker 1: to humans and a challenge to micro organisms as well,

874
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:48,080
Speaker 1: and these would need to be stripped out of the

875
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:51,520
Speaker 1: regular life before you could plant anything in it. Furthermore,

876
00:51:51,680 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 1: the Martian regular is, as far as we can tell dead. Uh,

877
00:51:55,280 --> 00:51:57,759
Speaker 1: that's the start difference from the soil we depend on

878
00:51:57,920 --> 00:52:01,800
Speaker 1: here on Earth, which is a rich environ of microbial life,

879
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:08,000
Speaker 1: fung gui, arthropods, organic nutrients. So they argue that you

880
00:52:08,160 --> 00:52:10,560
Speaker 1: need to add something, you know, you need to essentially

881
00:52:10,640 --> 00:52:13,759
Speaker 1: resurrect that soil. I mean you'd resurrect that regular to

882
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:16,239
Speaker 1: make it soil. You would need to add something like

883
00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:20,000
Speaker 1: worm castings to the mix. Now that's essentially the refuse

884
00:52:20,040 --> 00:52:24,400
Speaker 1: of earthworms that are just packed with bacteria, enzymes and

885
00:52:24,520 --> 00:52:28,800
Speaker 1: remnants of plant matter and excrement. And you can actually

886
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:30,840
Speaker 1: this is stuff you can buy for your own garden

887
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:34,759
Speaker 1: at gardening supply stores. You just get a big container

888
00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:38,320
Speaker 1: of earthworm poop. Well it's got it says worm castings,

889
00:52:38,320 --> 00:52:41,399
Speaker 1: but that's essentially what it is. Yeah. Nice. So anyway, Yeah,

890
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:43,840
Speaker 1: the Martian soil is sterile, and this would be a

891
00:52:43,880 --> 00:52:46,520
Speaker 1: way to sift some life into it. Anyway. They go

892
00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:49,799
Speaker 1: on to explore hydroponics in greater detail. Uh. And but

893
00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:52,520
Speaker 1: then to come back to tomatoes for a second, we

894
00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:55,520
Speaker 1: should note that the golden apples of terra can be

895
00:52:55,560 --> 00:52:59,840
Speaker 1: grown via high hydroponics and aero ponics, so both of

896
00:52:59,880 --> 00:53:01,799
Speaker 1: the If if either of those turned out to be

897
00:53:01,920 --> 00:53:05,120
Speaker 1: the way, as opposed to UH doing something to the

898
00:53:05,160 --> 00:53:08,920
Speaker 1: soil on on the Moon or on Marsh, it sounds

899
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:11,520
Speaker 1: like the tomatoes future would be bright. Now. To come

900
00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:15,120
Speaker 1: back to the fame link paper UM that study, Basically,

901
00:53:15,160 --> 00:53:19,239
Speaker 1: they wanted to see, if we're gonna use regularly, what

902
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:23,799
Speaker 1: plant species might grow their best. Um Now, since there

903
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:26,600
Speaker 1: is no regularly available here on Earth, we don't have

904
00:53:26,640 --> 00:53:29,320
Speaker 1: any you know, you can't go and get an actual

905
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:33,719
Speaker 1: pot of Lunar or Martian soil to experiment with, UH,

906
00:53:33,760 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 1: they decided to use the next best thing, which is

907
00:53:36,080 --> 00:53:42,600
Speaker 1: NASA's Mars Regular Simulant j s C Mars one A. Okay,

908
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:45,360
Speaker 1: there's actually there are actually several different versions of regulars

909
00:53:45,719 --> 00:53:48,719
Speaker 1: simulant out there, like this one is j s C

910
00:53:48,920 --> 00:53:51,360
Speaker 1: Mars one A, but there's also one called j s

911
00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:54,279
Speaker 1: C one A that is the lunar version, and there

912
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:58,160
Speaker 1: are some other varieties out there. UM Mars one A

913
00:53:58,320 --> 00:54:01,960
Speaker 1: is based on info gathered from the Viking Landers and

914
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:05,520
Speaker 1: the Mars path Finder rover, and it's pretty interesting stuff

915
00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 1: in and of itself. This one in particular is gathered

916
00:54:08,440 --> 00:54:11,200
Speaker 1: from the pooh Nena cinder cone on the Big Island

917
00:54:11,200 --> 00:54:13,480
Speaker 1: of Hawaii, Okay, So that would be it would be

918
00:54:13,560 --> 00:54:17,520
Speaker 1: like a volcanic soil base. Yeah. So anyway, the researchers

919
00:54:17,520 --> 00:54:20,160
Speaker 1: in this study they used a nutrient solution made from

920
00:54:20,160 --> 00:54:23,760
Speaker 1: a grass used as a cattle fodder to enrich the soil,

921
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:32,400
Speaker 1: and they cultivated ten different crops uh garden crests, rocket, tomato, radish, rye, keenwah, spinach, chives,

922
00:54:32,480 --> 00:54:36,000
Speaker 1: pas and leak, and they assimilated the properties of lunar

923
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:40,399
Speaker 1: and Martian regular and also normal soil potting soil from

924
00:54:40,400 --> 00:54:43,239
Speaker 1: Earth as a control. And if the tin crops of

925
00:54:43,800 --> 00:54:46,919
Speaker 1: spinach was the only one that was a complete dud. Uh.

926
00:54:47,040 --> 00:54:50,720
Speaker 1: Chives and leaks grew steadily but didn't produce much. Keenoa

927
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:53,600
Speaker 1: didn't produce seeds, which is a bummer because you want

928
00:54:53,640 --> 00:54:56,719
Speaker 1: your off world crop to also produce seeds for the

929
00:54:56,760 --> 00:55:00,000
Speaker 1: next generation. Again, you want to be as removed from

930
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:04,120
Speaker 1: that supply chain back to the home world as much

931
00:55:04,160 --> 00:55:07,399
Speaker 1: as possible, right, so you can eventually succeed from Earth

932
00:55:07,440 --> 00:55:13,680
Speaker 1: and declare independence. Yeah. Uh. Total biomass was highest for

933
00:55:13,760 --> 00:55:16,680
Speaker 1: the Earth control trays obviously, but also the Mars trades

934
00:55:16,719 --> 00:55:20,640
Speaker 1: were pretty high. Lunar tray was the worst, and the

935
00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:24,160
Speaker 1: seeds of three species radish, rye and garden crests were

936
00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:27,759
Speaker 1: tested successfully each for German nation. So those worlds only

937
00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:30,480
Speaker 1: the most promising in terms of of um you know,

938
00:55:30,600 --> 00:55:34,480
Speaker 1: continuing to to grow without more seeds coming from home. Well,

939
00:55:34,520 --> 00:55:36,799
Speaker 1: I know you're You've got to get to the tomatoes.

940
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:39,239
Speaker 1: How did they do? The tomatoes did pretty well. They

941
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:43,400
Speaker 1: were the top biomass producer and lead author here of

942
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:46,000
Speaker 1: Vigor of om Link is quoted as saying that they

943
00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:50,520
Speaker 1: were thrilled when the Martian tomatoes actually turned red. Whoa.

944
00:55:51,120 --> 00:55:53,840
Speaker 1: And there are other studies and programs looking at space

945
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:58,000
Speaker 1: tomatoes as well. One I came across is an operation

946
00:55:58,080 --> 00:56:03,080
Speaker 1: known as space UM an acronym. It's an acronym. Yes,

947
00:56:03,120 --> 00:56:05,120
Speaker 1: it's probably one of the more amusing acronyms I've run

948
00:56:05,160 --> 00:56:09,240
Speaker 1: across recently for the show. It is the Small Plants

949
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:13,920
Speaker 1: for Space Expeditions program UM uh So it's from the

950
00:56:14,000 --> 00:56:17,759
Speaker 1: University of California, Riverside, and it's what they've done is

951
00:56:17,760 --> 00:56:22,240
Speaker 1: they've developed a tiny tomato plant uh that feature minimal

952
00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:25,360
Speaker 1: leaves and stems, but produce a normal amount of fruit,

953
00:56:25,600 --> 00:56:30,200
Speaker 1: though in smaller packages. So in other words, more biomass

954
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:33,640
Speaker 1: is invested into the edible portions of the plant. And

955
00:56:33,640 --> 00:56:37,239
Speaker 1: they also this also minimizes resources and energy consumption by

956
00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 1: producing fruit more quickly than conventional plants. Oh yeah, I

957
00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:43,799
Speaker 1: hadn't even really considered this, but it makes sense that

958
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:47,759
Speaker 1: if you were trying to take crops to colonize, uh

959
00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:50,560
Speaker 1: you know, on a space station or another planet, you

960
00:56:50,560 --> 00:56:54,239
Speaker 1: could probably work back home to try to engineer sort

961
00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:58,680
Speaker 1: of the perfect version of the organism to take with you. Yeah.

962
00:56:58,760 --> 00:57:00,560
Speaker 1: And they also point out that this this is not

963
00:57:00,640 --> 00:57:03,160
Speaker 1: only something we can be utilized in am you know,

964
00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:07,120
Speaker 1: orbital or otherworldly environment, but also it's ideal for vertical

965
00:57:07,160 --> 00:57:10,239
Speaker 1: farming here on Earth. Again, think to those big tomatoes,

966
00:57:10,600 --> 00:57:12,239
Speaker 1: you know, because we end up trying to do some

967
00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:16,200
Speaker 1: forms form of vertical farming, uh sometimes via our steaks

968
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:20,040
Speaker 1: and tomato cages, and they're just so dern heavy, right. Uh.

969
00:57:20,120 --> 00:57:23,480
Speaker 1: The idea here is is make everything else about the

970
00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:26,320
Speaker 1: plant smaller, focus on the tomato itself, but also the

971
00:57:26,320 --> 00:57:29,320
Speaker 1: tomato is less hefty as well. Well. Hey, I got

972
00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:31,760
Speaker 1: no problem with small tomatoes. As I've said before, I mean,

973
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:35,520
Speaker 1: uh often the best tomatoes you can get under less

974
00:57:35,520 --> 00:57:38,080
Speaker 1: than ideal conditions, such as like the supply chain that

975
00:57:38,120 --> 00:57:40,880
Speaker 1: gets tomatoes to a grocery store are gonna be cherry

976
00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:43,280
Speaker 1: or grape tomatoes that they may be small, but they

977
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:46,200
Speaker 1: get a lot of flavor for their size. Now that

978
00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:48,480
Speaker 1: one of the interesting things about this is the Space

979
00:57:48,520 --> 00:57:54,240
Speaker 1: team developed these tomatoes not via selective breeding, but via

980
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:58,520
Speaker 1: Crisper case nine gene editing technology. Yeah. I don't know

981
00:57:58,560 --> 00:58:01,280
Speaker 1: if we've really gotten into their into the use of

982
00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:04,880
Speaker 1: crisper gene editing in uh in agriculture, but obviously this

983
00:58:04,920 --> 00:58:08,320
Speaker 1: would be huge. Yeah. We often when we're talking about

984
00:58:08,360 --> 00:58:10,600
Speaker 1: crisper and when I say we, not just us, but

985
00:58:10,640 --> 00:58:12,920
Speaker 1: you know, just sort of media in general and the

986
00:58:12,960 --> 00:58:16,280
Speaker 1: public were generally asking the question what about humans though?

987
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:19,000
Speaker 1: What about humans though? But we should occasionally say we

988
00:58:19,120 --> 00:58:21,960
Speaker 1: had stop and ask the question what about tomatoes? And

989
00:58:22,360 --> 00:58:26,280
Speaker 1: here we are. So on top of those the biomass tweaks,

990
00:58:26,400 --> 00:58:28,960
Speaker 1: they're also looking at a couple of other tweaks. Um

991
00:58:29,480 --> 00:58:33,080
Speaker 1: for an example, in an increase in the photosynthesis rate,

992
00:58:33,520 --> 00:58:35,800
Speaker 1: because this would help replace c O two in an

993
00:58:35,840 --> 00:58:39,640
Speaker 1: enclosed environment with fresh oxygen, which would be ideal for

994
00:58:39,680 --> 00:58:44,000
Speaker 1: any onboard animals such as human beings. So there seems

995
00:58:44,040 --> 00:58:46,400
Speaker 1: to be a lot, you know, interesting possibility in all

996
00:58:46,480 --> 00:58:50,760
Speaker 1: this tweaking alien soils to better support terrestrial food plants,

997
00:58:50,760 --> 00:58:54,240
Speaker 1: and also tweaking those plants to better capitalize on those

998
00:58:54,360 --> 00:58:57,720
Speaker 1: environments and better serving the innerge demands of the humans

999
00:58:57,720 --> 00:58:59,920
Speaker 1: who bring them there. Robert, I just thought of a

1000
00:59:00,080 --> 00:59:03,240
Speaker 1: complication here. So we're talking about on on the surfaces

1001
00:59:03,240 --> 00:59:06,400
Speaker 1: of other planets with normal gravity. But if you were

1002
00:59:06,440 --> 00:59:09,640
Speaker 1: to try to grow tomatoes in micro gravity, say on

1003
00:59:09,480 --> 00:59:12,640
Speaker 1: the on the I S S, then potentially you could

1004
00:59:12,680 --> 00:59:15,920
Speaker 1: grow tomato plants with big fruits that you wouldn't have

1005
00:59:16,080 --> 00:59:18,720
Speaker 1: to steak or put in a cage, right because they

1006
00:59:18,720 --> 00:59:23,880
Speaker 1: wouldn't be dragged down by gravity. Well that's true, yeah, um,

1007
00:59:23,920 --> 00:59:26,920
Speaker 1: But I guess on on that front, I wonder about

1008
00:59:27,040 --> 00:59:28,640
Speaker 1: you know, because we've all seen those tomatoes. It just

1009
00:59:28,680 --> 00:59:31,360
Speaker 1: get so big, they're just bursting. But I guess on

1010
00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:34,040
Speaker 1: the other hand, you'd probably be keeping a pretty close eye.

1011
00:59:34,040 --> 00:59:36,520
Speaker 1: And I mean on the I S S they run

1012
00:59:36,600 --> 00:59:39,600
Speaker 1: a pretty tight ship, and I imagine that would um,

1013
00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:42,320
Speaker 1: that would also be the case with any kind of

1014
00:59:42,480 --> 00:59:44,960
Speaker 1: tomato garden up there. Oh yeah, I wonder if the

1015
00:59:45,000 --> 00:59:47,560
Speaker 1: tomato would be kind of bouncing around and whatever its

1016
00:59:47,600 --> 00:59:51,960
Speaker 1: enclosure is. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Keep it in mind.

1017
00:59:52,280 --> 00:59:55,959
Speaker 1: I also wonder, though, how gravity affects um So there's

1018
00:59:55,960 --> 00:59:58,480
Speaker 1: something about the shape of a tomato that seems like

1019
00:59:58,520 --> 01:00:01,760
Speaker 1: it would somehow be influenced by the presence of gravity,

1020
01:00:01,840 --> 01:00:04,120
Speaker 1: and that it's a very heavy fruit and it's got

1021
01:00:04,120 --> 01:00:05,920
Speaker 1: a lot of moisture in it, and I wonder if,

1022
01:00:05,960 --> 01:00:09,400
Speaker 1: like you know, that it's necessary for the moisture to

1023
01:00:09,440 --> 01:00:12,320
Speaker 1: be weighing down towards the bottom of the tomato for

1024
01:00:12,360 --> 01:00:16,439
Speaker 1: its morphology to resemble the tomatoes. We know that's true,

1025
01:00:16,480 --> 01:00:18,800
Speaker 1: and so we might end up with a more spherical tomato,

1026
01:00:18,920 --> 01:00:20,880
Speaker 1: is that what you're saying. I don't know, maybe or

1027
01:00:20,960 --> 01:00:24,560
Speaker 1: more maybe a more top heavy tomato, I wonder, or

1028
01:00:24,640 --> 01:00:27,720
Speaker 1: maybe it'll be, you know, ultimately where we we missed

1029
01:00:28,200 --> 01:00:30,360
Speaker 1: the point made years ago, and that it's going to

1030
01:00:30,400 --> 01:00:33,840
Speaker 1: be Mickey Mouse shaped watermelons. Like that's that's the future

1031
01:00:34,560 --> 01:00:37,720
Speaker 1: of fruit and space. I love it, all right, So

1032
01:00:37,720 --> 01:00:40,040
Speaker 1: there we have it. As we said, you know, we

1033
01:00:40,200 --> 01:00:42,800
Speaker 1: did not have space in these episodes to discuss the

1034
01:00:42,960 --> 01:00:47,440
Speaker 1: entire history of human and tomato interaction. Nor did we

1035
01:00:47,520 --> 01:00:50,040
Speaker 1: even really get to touch on everything that's going on

1036
01:00:50,120 --> 01:00:53,360
Speaker 1: with tomato science, tomato research, etcetera. I mean, it's a

1037
01:00:53,400 --> 01:00:56,439
Speaker 1: massively juicy field. I'm sure there's a lot we could

1038
01:00:56,440 --> 01:01:00,320
Speaker 1: come back to, that's right. So anyway, hopefully know it

1039
01:01:00,400 --> 01:01:02,919
Speaker 1: gives because everybody a lot more to think about when

1040
01:01:02,920 --> 01:01:09,560
Speaker 1: they inevitably engage with tomato based cuisine, and hopefully as

1041
01:01:09,640 --> 01:01:13,480
Speaker 1: you enjoy some fresh tomatoes or at least reasonably fresh

1042
01:01:13,480 --> 01:01:16,800
Speaker 1: tomatoes this growing season. Yeah, it's a short window every year.

1043
01:01:16,840 --> 01:01:19,720
Speaker 1: It's a precious time, so so get them while you can,

1044
01:01:20,120 --> 01:01:21,760
Speaker 1: all right. In the meantime, if you want to listen

1045
01:01:21,800 --> 01:01:23,400
Speaker 1: to more episodes of stuff to blow your mind, you

1046
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:26,360
Speaker 1: know where to find them. Wherever you get your podcasts,

1047
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:29,120
Speaker 1: that's where they are and wherever that happens to be.

1048
01:01:29,320 --> 01:01:31,360
Speaker 1: Just make sure your rate, review and subscribe if you

1049
01:01:31,360 --> 01:01:34,480
Speaker 1: have the ability to on those platforms. Huge things. As

1050
01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:37,960
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If

1051
01:01:38,000 --> 01:01:39,880
Speaker 1: you'd like to get in touch with us with feedback

1052
01:01:39,920 --> 01:01:42,080
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, or to suggest a

1053
01:01:42,120 --> 01:01:44,560
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello. You

1054
01:01:44,600 --> 01:01:47,320
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

1055
01:01:47,320 --> 01:01:57,640
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production

1056
01:01:57,720 --> 01:02:00,680
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my radio. This

1057
01:02:00,760 --> 01:02:03,320
Speaker 1: is the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1058
01:02:03,360 --> 01:02:13,400
Speaker 1: you're listening to your favorite shows.