Addicted to Tomatoes

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They say admitting it is the first step. Here I said it. I'm addicted to tomatoes. Ever since I was old enough to eat solid food.

I don't consider a meal done unless I follow it by a tomato. Even when the meal is tomato soup and spaghetti marinara with insalata caprese on the side.

If I'm working and stressed, I take a "tomato break". No kidding I do!

If I feel like snacking between meals, tomatoes are my best friend. I seek their comfort.

I rush eagerly to the fridge, and start shuffling the tomatoes around to find the most perfectly shaped tomato with the most flawless skin. The holy grail of all tomatoes. The feeling of a perfect tomato in my hand is overwhelming! Few experiences in life are as transcendent.

I bite into it, feeling the shy resistance of its skin.. which quickly gives way to the fleshy goodness. Then the juices flow, refreshing and acidic, perfectly balancing the sweetness of the flesh.

-"Did you know tomatoes were considered poisonous?"
-"The sweetest of poisons."
-"But they're nightshades, nightshades are EVIL!"
-"The sweetest of evil."
-"They aren't even vegetables. They are a fruit and contain [GASP] sugar!"
-"The sweetest of sugar."

That conversation actually happened. Maybe not exactly, but it did happen. People are weird.

Why did I write this? No reason. Quite a few people are sharing their "addiction", so I thought why not share mine? Just because this post will not have hundreds of replies of banter, GIFs, "scientific facts" and scientific facts, it does not mean it has any less of a MFP spirit.
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Replies

  • AliceDark
    AliceDark Posts: 3,886 Member
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    I am too. Winter tomatoes are of the devil. Red and pretty, but they taste like cardboard. It's like expecting cocaine but getting Sweet & Low.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
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    Vegetable means edible part of a plant. What makes tomatoes not a vegetable?
  • JoRocka
    JoRocka Posts: 17,525 Member
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    I'm not addicted- but I definitely do love me some tomatoes!!!!! Have one right here on my desk!
  • Lourdesong
    Lourdesong Posts: 1,492 Member
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    My cat loses her mind if I am eating tomatoes. And Laughing Cow cheese. She practically needs to be restrained from diving face-first into my plate that has tomatoes or a laughing cow cheese wedge on it.
  • Jolinia
    Jolinia Posts: 846 Member
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    AliceDark wrote: »
    I am too. Winter tomatoes are of the devil. Red and pretty, but they taste like cardboard. It's like expecting cocaine but getting Sweet & Low.

    This is sadly true. I can't wait for tomatoes to be in season again. I guess I'm lucky it will be long after I hit goal weight as long as I don't do anything too stupid.
  • _Zardoz_
    _Zardoz_ Posts: 3,987 Member
    edited February 2015
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    cant be bothered
  • sympha01
    sympha01 Posts: 942 Member
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    I rush eagerly to the fridge, and start shuffling the tomatoes around to find the most perfectly shaped tomato with the most flawless skin.

    Wait. A self-described tomato aficionado keeps tomatoes in the refrigerator? BLASPHEMER!
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
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    Jolinia wrote: »
    AliceDark wrote: »
    I am too. Winter tomatoes are of the devil. Red and pretty, but they taste like cardboard. It's like expecting cocaine but getting Sweet & Low.

    This is sadly true. I can't wait for tomatoes to be in season again. I guess I'm lucky it will be long after I hit goal weight as long as I don't do anything too stupid.

    I believe I was strategically placed on earth on one of the few places where tomatoes are "in season" most of the year. We have areas that grow summer tomatoes, and others that grow winter tomatoes naturally due to the high temperatures. So It's basically farm-to-mouth for me for the biggest chunk of the year.
  • Khukhullatus
    Khukhullatus Posts: 361 Member
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    The whole "fruit vs vegetable" thing comes from mixing botany and culinary terms. The fruiting body of a plant is "the sweet and fleshy product of a tree or other plant that contains seed and can be eaten as food." By the botanical definition, a tomato is most definitely a fruit. But "vegetable" isn't really a botanical term, so from a botany standpoint, it can't be a "vegetable," because that isn't a real thing. "Vegetable is a culinary term, based on how one would cook with the plant in question, and in terms of how you cook with it, a tomato is debateably a "vegetable." It would be sort of like saying "carrots aren't a vegetable they are a root." I'm equivocating between the two terms because it is both, a vegetable in the culinary sense and a root in the botanical sense.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
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    sympha01 wrote: »
    I rush eagerly to the fridge, and start shuffling the tomatoes around to find the most perfectly shaped tomato with the most flawless skin.

    Wait. A self-described tomato aficionado keeps tomatoes in the refrigerator? BLASPHEMER!

    Agreed! And thinks that shape matters.
  • kenmiller75
    kenmiller75 Posts: 89 Member
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    And here I thought I was weird because I order extra tomato on my Whopper Jr and my subs at Subway. You should go to Spain and check out the annual La Tomatina Festival. You could go swimming in them!cz983rcy6adp.jpg
  • Jolinia
    Jolinia Posts: 846 Member
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    Jolinia wrote: »
    AliceDark wrote: »
    I am too. Winter tomatoes are of the devil. Red and pretty, but they taste like cardboard. It's like expecting cocaine but getting Sweet & Low.

    This is sadly true. I can't wait for tomatoes to be in season again. I guess I'm lucky it will be long after I hit goal weight as long as I don't do anything too stupid.

    I believe I was strategically placed on earth on one of the few places where tomatoes are "in season" most of the year. We have areas that grow summer tomatoes, and others that grow winter tomatoes naturally due to the high temperatures. So It's basically farm-to-mouth for me for the biggest chunk of the year.

    So lucky! I'd probably be in trouble, though. Not from the tomatoes themselves, I just find losing weight in ketosis easiest, and I would definitely knock myself out if I had all the tomatoes I wanted year round! I'd be glowing with lycopene joy, though.
  • rlv20
    rlv20 Posts: 7 Member
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    Vegetable means edible part of a plant. What makes tomatoes not a vegetable?

    No, a fruit is a seed-bearing structure typically conveying the reproductive means of a plant. A vegetable is some other portion of the plant, be it root, leaf, stem, etc.
  • JoRocka
    JoRocka Posts: 17,525 Member
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    Vegetable means edible part of a plant. What makes tomatoes not a vegetable?

    you're definition of vegetable is incorrect.

    Peppers aren't veggies either.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
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    Vegetable means edible part of a plant. What makes tomatoes not a vegetable?

    No, a fruit is a seed-bearing structure typically conveying the reproductive means of a plant. A vegetable is some other portion of the plant, be it root, leaf, stem, etc.

    I believe if you consult a dictionary, you'll find that is incorrect.
  • sympha01
    sympha01 Posts: 942 Member
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    JoRocka wrote: »
    Vegetable means edible part of a plant. What makes tomatoes not a vegetable?

    you're definition of vegetable is incorrect.

    Peppers aren't veggies either.

    Tomato / tomahto

  • jouttie
    jouttie Posts: 109 Member
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    I go through phases of craving tomatoes... they are lovely things. Not having a phase of it now, although I do eat them regularly. Actually, tomato soup for lunch, tomatoes on my salad just now... other times I have phases of craving beetroot. Gotta have beetroot all the time. Other times, sesame. I literally sweat and feel anxious until I get my sesame fix. There must be something in these things that the body - and brain - need so urgently.
  • kamakazeekim
    kamakazeekim Posts: 1,183 Member
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    AliceDark wrote: »
    I am too. Winter tomatoes are of the devil. Red and pretty, but they taste like cardboard. It's like expecting cocaine but getting Sweet & Low.

    This! I too LOVE tomatoes!!!

  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
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    JoRocka wrote: »
    Vegetable means edible part of a plant. What makes tomatoes not a vegetable?

    you're definition of vegetable is incorrect.

    Peppers aren't veggies either.

    It's not my defintion.

    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vegetable?s=t
    noun
    1. any plant whose fruit, seeds, roots, tubers, bulbs, stems, leaves, or flower parts are used as food, as the tomato, bean, beet, potato, onion, asparagus, spinach, or cauliflower.
    2. the edible part of such a plant, as the tuber of the potato.
    3. any member of the vegetable kingdom; plant.
    4. Informal. a person who is so severely impaired mentally or physically as to be largely incapable of conscious responses or activity.
    5. a dull, spiritless, and uninteresting person.

    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vegetable
    Definition of VEGETABLE
    1: plant
    2: a usually herbaceous plant (as the cabbage, bean, or potato) grown for an edible part that is usually eaten as part of a meal; also: such an edible part
    3: a person whose mental and physical functioning is severely impaired and especially one who requires supportive measures (as mechanical ventilation) to survive
  • JoRocka
    JoRocka Posts: 17,525 Member
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    sympha01 wrote: »
    JoRocka wrote: »
    Vegetable means edible part of a plant. What makes tomatoes not a vegetable?

    you're definition of vegetable is incorrect.

    Peppers aren't veggies either.

    Tomato / tomahto

    no- a fruit is seedy part of the reproductive unit of a plant.

    Peppers- carry the seeds. So do tomatoes.
    Botanically speaking, a fruit is a seed-bearing structure that develops from the ovary of a flowering plant, whereas vegetables are all other plant parts, such as roots, leaves and stems

    http://www.livescience.com/33991-difference-fruits-vegetables.html
    I believe if you consult a dictionary, you'll find that is incorrect.
    No- it's not.

    websters is not the experts on plant parts.

    a tomato unquestionably is a fruit.

    But because of it's savory nature- we treat it as a veggie.