In my supermarket, why do the tomatoes that are labelled as being a product of Mexico, invariably taste better than those labelled as being a product of the United States? Even more interesting, the supermarket tomatoes that are a product of Mexico, although they apparently are raised in large agri-business fashion, taste better than the tomatoes grown (in season) by my local farm-stand farmer? Not only that, they taste better than the tomatoes grown by the local organic farmstand farmer.

Why is the US so much ahead of Mexico in terms of standard of living, yet Mexico is so much ahead of the US in terms of quality of tomatoes? What is going on here? Why can't large-scale US agribusiness produce a decent tomato?

I'm guessing more of Mexico is a better tomato-growing climate than much of the US, also, their soil might not yet be as depleted as ours because they havn't been chemfarming as long. (Really just guessing here)

Didn't tomatoes originate in Mexico?

Yes tomatoes originated in Mexico. That proves nothing.

There are plenty of places in New Mexico and Arizona California and Nevada that have identical climates to those where tomatoes are grown in Mexico for export to the US

Perhaps you are on to somethiing about depleted soil. But of course, you CAN "chemfarm" without depleting the soil. It is just a matter of taking care of the soil and not relying entirely on industrially-produced plant nutrients as your 1-note method of ensuring plant growth and crop yield.

Ok, I'm not debating here or trying to PROVE anything.

God damn I'm getting tired of this.

G'bye.

Ludi "I'm not debating here or trying to PROVE anything."

Me neither. I'm merely speculating as to why tomatoes that are labelled as being a product of Mexico, seem to almost always taste better than those labelled as being a product of the United States. And, even more alarmingly than that, tomotatoes from mexican big agribusiness, taste better than most of those produced by US family-farmer.

As I said, I think you are on to something, re depleted soil in the US. Yet I believe that Mexican agri-business also uses chemical agriculture, and that they have been farming the same land using the same method, on a large scale, for export of produce, for more than 5 years now. This is just speculation, but I wonder if Mexican agri business concentrate more on flavor than on appearance and size. I wonder if staters concentrate on size, appearance, transportability without damage, and long-term storage, and are more willing to sacrifice taste, in order to achieve these other goals.

I also wonder if staters aim for "instant" results without thinking about the long-term consequences, and if Mexicans may take a long-term view of soil quality, rather than concentrate on how much food and how fast they can produce it, without regard to the long term consequences. The results you get from scientific agriculture, are only as good as the particular results you aim for. There are scientific methods of producing a maximum yield in any given year, and in addition, there ARE scientific methods of maintaing soil quality. I wonder if Staters are prone to us only the former, and I wonder if Mexican agribusiness is prone to use both?

Just as an example of cultural differneces regarding produce, my 5 foot 6 inch male friend who worked in a San Antonio Texas supermarket produce department, who was an immigrant from Mexico, remarked about the grapefruits on display in the produce department; he said that "everything has to be big in Texas." He conjectured that perhaps if several varieites of grapefruits of different sizes and qualities were being sold for the same price per pound, Texans would buy bigger grapefruits, without caring what they tasted like, and that Mexicans would buy the best tasting grapefruit, without caring how big they were.

My guess, and this is just speculation, is that Mexican farmers, even big agri business farmers, may simply care more about long-term quality of their soil than US farmers, and that therefore they will include soil quality maintenence tasks, in their annual routine, while US farmers would be rushed to produce as much as possible as soon as possible, and neglect to do soil-quality maintenance tasks.

Yes tomatoes originated in Mexico.

actually, they originated in South America. in the Andes, to be precise.

Buenosayres "actually, they originated in South America. in the Andes, to be precise."

cite dependable source please!

do a websearch. i'm sure all hits will say so, wether dependable or not.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=tomato

and after reading the paragraph they have about it's history, i can see why you think it originated in Mexico.

Buenosayres, acc to the link you posted, the tomato originated in S America but the word tomato came from a central american lanuage word for the fruit. I would guess that Europeans and North americans "discovered" the tomato in central america and that it orginally was cultivated in S America and then cultivation spread to C America.

The origin of lots of domestic plants and animals does seem to be not entirely known today. It seems like one of those things that you can search for ages for, on the web, and have to look thru old journal articles in biology libraries,before finding a few attempts at discovering their origins. Brussel sprouts and cauliflower and sweet corn and a few other food plants, were bred, if i recall correctly, during recorded history. Most domestic plants, their natural origin seems to be as quite a puzzle. Research on the subject doesn't get anywhere near as much funding, or interest, as research on the origin of humans and other primates.

Buenosayres, acc to the link you posted, the tomato originated in S America but the word tomato came from a central american lanuage word for the fruit. I would guess that Europeans and North americans "discovered" the tomato in central america and that it orginally was cultivated in S America and then cultivation spread to C America.


no, the word tomato came from the Nahuatl(the Aztec language) word tomatl. in the history paragraph provided, it says that when the Spanish conquered the Aztecs, they brought the tomato back to Spain, borrowing the word tomatl and naming it "tomate" which in present day is still the spanish word for tomato.