The Perfect Tomato

“An Architect who does field site observation relayed this story to me this past week. It happened to him a few years ago.

Jim, the Arch goes to KY once a week to check on a project that both our firms were involved with. This was several years back. The project manager was a real jerk. Everyone in the family was docs, judges, and lawyers. He was a bit of an elitist and very arogant. Jim walks in the job trailer and see two of the prettiest, most perfect tomatoes he'd ever seen. Frank, the PM I mentioned above is eating one like an apple.
Frank: This is the best tomato I've ever had, grab the other one.
Jim: Thanks, but I don't eat tomatos that way.
Frank: I don't either, but this is just the best. Go ahead, grab it.
Jim: Thanks, but I'll pass.
Frank finishes the tomato and is just in heaven.

Next week Jim comes back to the project, walks in the job trailer and sees a basket of the same perfect tomatoes.
Jim: Frank, just can't get enough of them, eh? Still enjoying them?
Frank: Hellllll no, I don't want to ever see another tomato.
Jim: Why not?
Frank: Jim Bob that does our concrete work brought the first two to me. I really bragged up his tomatoes. He told me I could have as many as I want and brought that basket. When he dropped it off he said, "I can get as many of those as you want. My boy Bubba cuts grass down at the treatment plant and they grow wild on the creek bank running out the plant."
Frank says that he's spent the last day or two trying to decide if he washed that last tomato he ate.


Turns out this is an actual problem. Tomato seeds survive the trip thru our digestive tract, the trip down the sewer, and the trip thru the wastweater treatment plant. They will grow like crazy along the effluent discharge channel and treatment plants are supposed to spray them to keep the plants from growing.”

“It is indeed true that tomato seeds survive the trip through the treatment plant. Some plants process the solid wastes into biodegradable fertilizer, selling it to the public. They have to treat it first to kill the tomato seeds.

There would be nothing wrong with tomatoes produced from plants sprouting from such seeds, but one might not want to eat tomatoes from plants growing near the treatment plant.”

“for other pictures of perfect tomatoes report to the atonement thread ;-)”

“So true HOI!”

“They prolly spray to keep people from coming to pick the tomatoes. I don't think there would be anything wrong with eating them, but the area where you would have to be to harvest them would perhaps not be the healthiest place in the world. Just a thought.”

“When I bought my first house it had a septic field. I asked the agent if it needed to be drained.

'Probably not,' she replied, 'but if yuo do it will give you the best tomatoes you ever ate.'

This is also why hot peppers keep getting hotter. The seeds are not digested by birds who do not feel the heat. Bird poop spreads the seeds. The peppers are hot to prevent mammals from eating them. We keep eating them and they keep getting hotter.”