Why are tomatoes getting worse and worse?

I don't know when Mu Zi needs to add some pure ketchup when cooking scrambled eggs with tomatoes. "Tomatoes really don't taste like tomatoes. It's hard to stir up sand when cooking. Sour and sweet, making soup is even more uncomfortable. "

The fact that tomatoes are becoming less and less delicious has caused many people to scream. "Very hard, no juice, not sweet", everyone uses similar words to describe it. Compared with the taste of Chinese and western tomatoes before, it hurts even more: even tomatoes have changed their minds.

It stands to reason that the breeding selection of human intervention should develop towards the trend of both good-looking and delicious, but after so many years, tomatoes are still pointed out that their taste is not as good as before. The evolutionary logic of tomatoes is a bit difficult to understand.

Shi Jun, a doctor of botany and a popular science writer, believes that most fruits and vegetables we buy in the market today are developing towards the "golden mean", which is the result of many compromises, and so are tomatoes.

"People's tastes and markets are a process of mutual domestication," Shi Jun said. In the process of tomato gradually entering the mass market, growers pay more attention to appearance, transportation and storage capacity, while flavor is in a relatively backward position. In the long run, tomatoes that appear on consumers' tables have become the type that has been spit out as "ugly".

Disappearing "tomato flavor"

What was the "tomato smell" when I was a child?

Bao Xiao described it this way: When I was a child, in the hot summer, I had no appetite for dinner, so I ate an ice tomato and half a cucumber. The skin of tomatoes is soft and fleshy, and the flesh outside is bitten by rustling, wrapped in a glittering and translucent bag, and the juice is rich. Later, when she saw the picture of a girl biting a tomato in the movie "Little Forest", she would think of the scene of eating tomatoes before.

In addition to raw food, whether it is mixed with sugar or stir-fried, she can feel the sweet and sour taste of tomatoes. "It is a constant sense of ceremony to dip the juice of scrambled eggs with tomatoes with the last big steamed bread."

Sandy flesh, sweet and sour, juicy, which is what most people want tomatoes to look like. Looking at the vegetables and tomatoes on the supermarket shelves now, they are bright in color and full in fruit shape, just like a delicious look. But whether it is really delicious, as Mu Zi said, depends on luck.

We went to the supermarket and bought some "perfect" tomatoes at random, which were hard to press with our hands. Go home and wash it and cut it. There is a solid seed pulp part in it. In everyone's previous impression, it is the part that will overflow when cutting. Unfortunately, the tomatoes we bought didn't bring such a surprise. Peel and pulp are closely combined, even peeling with hot water is not smooth.

Not surprisingly, the pulp is hard, even a little brittle when bitten, completely soft and rotten. As for the taste, although everyone has different opinions, what we bought is definitely not delicious.

Tomatoes with rich and bright colors taste ordinary. Photography/Mars

Wang Shufen, who lives in Shenzhen, is a tomato lover. In 20 18, because she thought the existing tomatoes were so unpalatable that "I can't tell whether I ate tomatoes or slippers blindfolded", she did some research and found that most of the commercial hybrids sold in the market had thick and hard skins and long shelf life. For example, the high-yield stone tomato "Shidun 197" can feel the hardness just by listening to its name.

So she began to try to plant her own "heirloom" varieties on the balcony, such as yellow brandy and Cherokee purple. These varieties are often misunderstood as transgenic tomatoes because of their bright colors, but in fact they are more traditional varieties without hybridization.

"heirloom" tomato source: network

The flavor changes that consumers feel are scientifically certified. In a research article entitled "Chemical Genetic Roadmap for Improving Tomato Flavor", the researchers analyzed the flavor substances of 398 modern commercial, heirloom and wild tomato varieties, and found that the content of 13 flavor compounds in common tomato varieties on the shelves decreased significantly.

The above research also pointed out that in the process of cultivating larger and brighter varieties, the loss of some gene loci reduced the sugar content of tomatoes.

Xu Dan, general manager of Beijing Jixing Agricultural Co., Ltd. mentioned that the sweet-sour ratio of tomatoes will affect the taste. Generally speaking, the ratio of sweet and sour that Asians like is about 9: 1 or 8:2.

However, according to previous research by Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, compared with traditional varieties, the "sugar-acid ratio" and "soluble sugar content" of modern pink-fruit tomatoes decreased by 26. 12% and 17.67% respectively. The decline of red fruit tomato was 22. 17%, 1 1.60%.

It turns out that the unpalatable tomato is not our illusion, but really unpalatable.

What killed the "tomato flavor"?

The disappearance of "tomato flavor" seems to be the failure of biological breeding technology in contemporary society, but it is actually the result of the tripartite game of breeding, planting and market.

Xu Dan told us that most of the tomatoes on the market now are far from the producing area. For example, tomatoes eaten in winter in the north are basically shipped from Lingshui, Hainan or Guangxi, and shipped from Ningxia or Inner Mongolia in summer, with a transportation distance of several thousand kilometers. Under the background of long-distance transportation demand, tomato breeding and planting naturally change with time and trend.

Wang Tonglin, a researcher at Hangzhou Academy of Agricultural Sciences, pointed out that in recent ten years, the breeding of new tomato varieties has been based on disease resistance, yield, hardness, fruit appearance and other characteristics as the main evaluation indicators, and the flavor ranking is relatively backward.

In 1960s and 1970s, tomatoes planted in China were mainly conventional (self-bred) and could be planted for several generations, so they were also called "heirloom varieties". However, the resistance of self-bred varieties is often poor, and once they encounter diseases, it is easy to destroy the shed and stop the garden. "When the epidemic raided, the domestic varieties had no antigens, and all of them were infected at once, resulting in no harvest. Exotic varieties have strong resistance and good growth. Slowly, some local old varieties have faded out of public view. " Wang Tonglin told us.

At the same time, under the requirement of transportation resistance, the "muddy tomato" that many people miss is gradually eliminated under the modern agricultural regional production mode because it is not resistant to storage and transportation and has a short shelf life. In order to improve economic benefits, farmers prefer to plant tomato varieties with hard pulp and thick skin.

The planting situation of Shouguang, the hometown of vegetables, is very typical and representative. Li Guangyue has more than 30 years of experience in vegetable cultivation. When the tomato market was good a few years ago, they all planted it in their village. In the past two years, the benefits have declined, and everyone has switched to eggplant and pepper. According to Li Guangyue, Shouguang mainly uses Israeli and Dutch varieties for tomato cultivation. These varieties have high yield, good appearance, thick peel, high hardness and good transportation resistance.

Xu Dan also mentioned that in order to ensure a longer storage time, tomatoes tend to be less mature when they are picked, and they may be harvested when they are five or six ripe. Although the color will turn red slowly in the later transportation process, the accumulation of elements such as sugar has not yet reached its due level, and the taste will naturally deteriorate.

"The maturity of tomatoes at harvest depends on the distance of transportation," Li Guangyue said. Take Shouguang tomato as an example. If it is transported to Xinjiang market, the transportation distance is long, and it will take May and June to harvest it. If it is shipped to Jinan, Qingdao or Beijing market, it can wait until August and September. "Tomatoes will soften when cooked. When they are soft, they can't be transported on the road at all. Just send a little red when picking them. "

"When I was a child, there was a vegetable garden in front of my house. Vegetables picked in the field in the morning were served at noon. Now it takes three or four days to transport it from the vegetable base to the city. Even if logistics is developed, can this dish be the same? " Shi Jun said.

In addition, in addition to the flavor damage caused by early picking, low-temperature storage during transportation is also harmful to the taste. Many fresh e-commerce platforms will directly mark the storage conditions as refrigerated on the tomato product page.

Xu Dan explained to us that although there are some trade-offs in breeding, picking half-baked fruits in order to enhance transportation resistance has a greater impact on the taste of tomatoes. "In fact, the variety is not bad now. If you go to the field to eat a tomato with high maturity, any variety is delicious. "

In addition to variety and harvest maturity, the change of planting environment also affects the flavor of tomato.

According to Li Guangyue, the way tomatoes are grown now is very different from before. Tomatoes with "childhood flavor" in everyone's memory are mostly planted in the open air, using farm organic fertilizers such as pig manure and chicken manure, and rarely using pesticides. But now tomatoes are basically planted in greenhouses, and in recent years, because there are many viruses in tomato plants, a lot of fertilizers and pesticides are needed to ensure the normal growth of tomatoes. These factors greatly reduced the taste of tomatoes to some extent.

In the face of goods, taste is no longer important.

As a kind of fruit and vegetable, tomatoes on the market now are disappointing if they are judged by taste and flavor. However, as a commodity, it is a qualified commodity in terms of appearance, transportation resistance and storage capacity.

Li Guangyue told us that the price of tomatoes is much higher now than before. "In the past, if it was planted in the open air, the commercial fruit in 10 tomato might not exceed half. Now there are 9 commercial fruits in 10 tomato. " The so-called commodity fruit is simply the fruit that sells well and can be sold directly.

The improvement of commodity means that tomato products are more suitable for market sales and have higher economic benefits. Li Guangyue said that their vegetable farmers mainly refer to market conditions, rather than simply taking growing vegetables as a career. It is best to grow vegetables with good quality, but high income is the fundamental.

"We ordinary people pay attention to efficiency. In the same (big vegetable field) greenhouse, planting ordinary tomatoes may earn 65,438+10,000 yuan, but planting organic tomatoes with better taste will increase labor costs, but the yield is not as good as ordinary varieties, and the overall benefit will naturally be bad. " In the eyes of vegetable farmers, it is a good deal to grow tomatoes with greater hardness and thicker skin, which are common in the market now.

"Our breeding focuses on growers, not consumers. In fact, there are also delicious varieties, but most consumers can't eat them, because no one will plant them for you and there is no way to promote them. " Wang Tonglin said.

Shi Jun mentioned that tomato is an indispensable ingredient in western culture, but its position in the diet of China people is far less than that of vegetables such as Chinese cabbage; Compared with strawberries and lychees, tomatoes are so common that few consumers are willing to pay too high a premium for them.

Lao Wang, who has planted tomatoes for more than 30 years, is an advocate of old varieties. He planted an "old-flavored tomato left over from the 1980s", and he couldn't even name it. Its skin was thin and juicy, and its flesh was soft. In Lao Wang's micro store, the price of ordinary express delivery of 4 kg tomatoes is 58 yuan, and the price of 12 high-quality express delivery is 1 18 yuan. If it is sent outside Sichuan province, you will have to pay extra.

Lao Wang told us that in order to protect the fragile soft tomatoes, we need to use pieces of foam to support them, put foam mats in each pit, and then cover the tomatoes with two layers of nets. With the current logistics system, the provincial capitals can basically guarantee delivery within 48 hours, but it is still difficult to ensure zero loss on the way. Some first-time customers feel that the fruit is soft, the sepals are dry and stale after receiving it. "Because they are used to eating tomatoes in the supermarket, we also have difficulties."

Having said that, the facts are clear. Under the current breeding and planting technology, it is not difficult to grow tomatoes with both face value and flavor, but it is the choice of the market. The profit-seeking nature makes this kind of tomato with ordinary taste popular now, and delicious tomatoes are ignored because of insufficient goods or low profits.

But this does not mean that high-quality tomatoes have no living space. Take the high-sugar fruit tomato produced in Shizuoka, Japan as an example, the sugar content is as high as 8 degrees, which is 1.5 times higher than that of ordinary tomato. Natural prices are also high. On the e-commerce platform, the price of one kilogram (12- 16) is around 800 yuan, and it is also sought after by many consumers. The domestic high-end agricultural products market is also gradually opening up. Boutique fruit and vegetable supermarkets in first-and second-tier cities are often overcrowded, and many people are more willing to pay for organic, green and healthy fruits and vegetables.

Wang Tonglin told us that in recent two years, the direction of high-quality tomato breeding in some areas has been very clear. "As we are doing breeding work now, the government will only give financial support to the project if we eat varieties well." After successful breeding, it will be promoted in a small scale in the suburbs, and farmers will plant one or two acres of land for customers to eat or buy through private channels. If the economic benefits are good, the scale is expanded, and the income level of local consumers is high, they are more willing to pay for high value-added tomatoes.

Even so, the promotion of high-quality tomato breeding still needs a very long process. Take the new tomato "Tomatoes in Provence" as an example. This variety was introduced to Drouth, the Netherlands. Juicy and sandy, it is a high-quality variety with balanced flavor and goods. As early as a decade ago, Jilin, Shandong, Shaanxi, Hebei and other provinces tried to cultivate this variety, but it was not until the last year or two that it became a upstart in the mass consumer market because of the rise of WeChat commercial channel.

"Varieties like Provence can also be found in China, with similar characteristics, similar taste, similar disease resistance and shelf life, but it is difficult to surpass them." Wang Tonglin said that in the field of tomato breeding, if we pursue quality, we should look at Japan, and if we pursue commodities, we should look at Israel and the United States. China has been chasing behind the international seed industry to find alternative varieties, but it can't dominate the market.

For ordinary consumers, we don't care how delicious tomatoes grow. What more people want is to add a plate of sweet and sour sugar mixed with tomatoes on their own dining table.