About tomato

Tomato is one of the most commonly grown vegetables in almost all parts of the world. There is a proverb that ‘daily intake of an apple keeps you away from the doctors.’ The proverb has now changed to ‘daily intake of tomato keeps you away from the doctors.’ Tomato fruit is a vegetable fruit, it is not real fruit. But, tomato fruit works better in our body system than the fruits of the apple.

Apple cannot be grown in all parts of the world. But; in almost all parts of the world, farmers are growing tomatoes in their vegetable garden either indoor or outdoor. They have been growing tomatoes in small pots too. But, farmers are not growing apples in small pots in all parts of the world. Apple fruits are very expensive in comparison to tomato fruits. Within four months farmers can harvest the fruits from growing tomatoes in their vegetable garden but they cannot harvest apples even in twelve months.

Although tomato is vegetable, but the nutritional benefits of tomato fruits are several times more than the nutritional benefits of the apple fruits. As mentioned earlier that growing apples is not possible in all parts of the world but growing tomatoes is possible in almost all parts of the world. One theoretical horticulturist can imagine growing apples in artificial environment is also possible as the success of growing tomatoes in artificial environment like polythene tunnel or greenhouse. But, it is not practically possible.

Growing apples is possible in artificial environment for research purpose only. Practically, growing apples is not possible in artificial environment either for home consumption or for commercial production. But growing tomatoes is possible in natural vegetable garden as well as in artificial environment in extreme seasons in almost all parts of the world. Farmers are growing tomatoes in greenhouses or plastic tunnel or in almost all vegetable gardens where there is ample sunlight.

It was estimated that people produced 113.3 million tons of tomato fruits in the year of 2003 in the world which was the largest production among cabbage, tomatoes, cauliflower, onion, carrot, watermelons and garlic in the year of 2003 (FAO, 2003). It is so much produced because of the popularity of the tomato fruits.

The popularity is because of palatability of the diverse and versatile vegetable recipes of the tomato fruits. Tomato fruits are consumed as fresh vegetable cooking alone or with other vegetables. Tomato is one of the most popular fruit vegetables since it has versatile uses in the vegetable recipe. The vegetable recipes with tomato fruits are very popular among the people in the world. Besides, tomato fruit is the reservoir of several beneficial nutrients including lycopene. People are consuming tomato fruits in a variety of ways. There are a variety of tomato products such as tomato salad, tomato paste, tomato ketchup, tomato juice, tomato soup, tomato puree, tomato powder, tomato pickle and other tomato recipe. There are thousands of tomato recipes and other vegetable recipes with tomato fruits or its processed products in different countries in the world. Farmers who are growing tomatoes in their vegetable garden are consuming tomato fruits in different forms or selling to the grocery store or departmental stores. All the people do not have their own house. Some live in apartment. So they do not have space or vegetable garden for growing tomatoes but they are buying fresh tomatoes and tomato products such as tomato paste, and tomato ketchup and consuming tomato in different forms. It is blessings of the tomato plants that growing tomatoes is possible in almost all parts of the world. Even though farmers could not grow tomato in any vegetable garden in any parts of the world; but growing tomatoes is possible in artificial environment such as greenhouses. Even if the gardeners are growing tomatoes in expensive greenhouses with expensive production technology, they are still benefited from the sale of the produced tomato fruits.

Reference FAO Production Year Book, 2003.

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