Set The Ugly Tomatoes Free!
posted in Frankenfoods, Fruits and Vegetables, General |Most tomatoes you buy at the store look nice, but don’t taste very good. Especially in winter. So one Florida grower bred his own version of tomatoes that still taste good even after being shipped hundreds of miles. Customers swear that they taste much better than ordinary tomatoes. And they’re willing to pay twice as much for them as they pay for regular tomatoes. But they don’t look so hot; in fact, they’re marketed as UglyRipe Tomatoes. But you can’t buy them anymore, thanks to the Florida Tomato Committee. They have the power to determine which Florida tomatoes can be sold and which can’t. And they’ve decided that UglyRipe tomatoes are, well, too ugly to be allowed to be sold, no matter how many people want to buy them.
Oh, well. At least we still live in the freest country on the planet, where you’re allowed to burn the flag, cable and satellite companies provide hard core porn 24/7, and our government allows all kinds of genetically modified Frankenfoods on the market, while protecting us from less than aesthetically perfect natural produce.
And I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free!
Update: I didn’t notice until after posting that the story was three years old. So I Googled around and found out that in January of this year, after a three year battle, the USDA finally granted UglyRipe tomatoes an exemption. So the ugly tomatoes are free at last!
