winter tomatoes supermarket

[atroul]

Are they healthy? or maybe bettter: are they dangerous?
Just wondering...

[Upphew]

Are they healthy? or maybe bettter: are they dangerous?
Just wondering...

Finnish ones? Grown under artificial light in greenhouses, no reason to be more dangerous than summer ones. Less pesticides maybe, maybe not? Price might be dangerous though.
Foreign ones? Grown under Mediterranean sun. Dunno how much chemicals they use, but wouldn't consider them dangerous either. At least your wallet will thank you.

[Rosamunda]

Nowadays Finnish tomatoes do not necessarily cost more to produce or to buy than Spanish ones.
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/08/th ... meria.html

Lighting comes from state of the art LED lamps and heating is geothermic, so the carbon footprint is probably lower than the Spanish tomatoes grown under 1980s plastic polytunnels using water pumped in from miles away. Pesticides are way more of a problem down there than up here.

As far as taste is concerned, only you can decide whether you like them or not. During the summer I bought quite a lot of tomatoes from the market place in Salo where there were a couple of stalls selling ONLY tomatoes - many different varieties and they were really good. Not so sure about the winter though, I don't eat so much fresh salad veg this time of year.

[atroul]

The question is more about the pesticides and hormones etc.

[Rip]

I have no really firm facts on this, but I think the Finnish ones are cleaner. Generally the cooler climate reduces at least some for the pests while I think biological insect control is more suitable for the closed greenhouses.

[tuttu]

Foreign ones? Grown under Mediterranean sun.

i used to think like that.
then i visited the south of spain.
changed my mind.

still, you can never replace real sunlight with lighthouse light.
but real soil is also very important.
and it doesn't end once the tomatoes are picked. how are they treated after that?
and why only tomatoes? what about all other veggies/fruit?

i don't have an answer, but i tend to believe that countries with firm laws and a scrupulous mentality also have firm laws against using too much pesticide, or other stuff (e.g. gasing apples).
but i'm not so naive as to think that a finnish tomato is "like fresh from mother nature", or even "as good as organic".

buying local makes sense in other ways, too, also health-wise.

[Pursuivant]

The greenhouse-ones are pretty bland and tasteless. Theres not much pesticides etc. used, due to the facts of nature, as well as EVIRA controls (though I doubt they do much checks, as most of the stuff was banned for sale in the 70's). Nevertheless both types of tomatoes are picked by immigrants thinking they have a good deal...