Speed Bump by Dave Coverly for July 26, 2021

Humans have been bioengineering food and decorative plants and food, pet and work animals… for a LONG time. The techniques have recently begun changing…

The best of all worlds.

“Oh yeah. We do it ourselves. Got a table set up in the back of the barn. We can whip up whatever you need.”

“They are grown locally, but we buy the seeds from Monsanto.”

We artificially inseminate every one.

Is it halibut or swordfish DNA in those tomatoes?

I used to help a farmer selling great tomatoes at the farmer’s market… I got paid in produce.

Wonderful, backyard varieties, from a very small farm, here in Northern California, but a sunnier area.

Hand picked that morning…. not certified organic, but grown without pesticides or artificial fertilizers… vine ripe and delicious.

Every Wednesday he drove almost 200 miles to sell them here.

Yes, a lot of gas… but our local tomatoes were still months from ripe, and tasteless supermarket tomatoes in May can be from as far away as Peru or even China.

Nearly every week, some so-called “locavore” would turn up his/her nose, because they weren’t grown within an arbitrary distance… usually 50 miles.

I love to ask them whether they eat peanut butter, or drink coffee or tea.

And what they’d eat in the winter, if they lived in New Hampshire or Maine.

It seems the rules only apply to fresh produce…

Its OK if the wheat in their bread comes from Kansas or Iowa…

and their whisky all the way from Scotland.

But a hardworking young farmer from the lush Central Valley isn’t supposed to sell them a great tomato, or make a living,

Modern food distribution has saved many a starving population on this planet… let’s not go back to the 15th century,

“They are tomatoes. These we picked these ourselves. We bought the starter plants at the grocery store. That’s it.”

Yes, that’s why I’m wearing Genes.

Tomatoes are sold by the pound, so they have been artificially selected to be heavy with water – and that’s what they taste like: water. Have you ever noticed that they all look almost exactly alike? You might as well pay for an equivalent sized bag of water.

I remember as a kid, eating a tomato sandwich and it tasting like something.

Oy!

We don’t sell anything that isn’t made in this galaxy.

Yes – they’re kind of free range. They’ve been to the lab and back again.

They’re guaranteed to taste savory and meaty.

Local, from our beds, and heirloom instead of the tasteless, mushy red things they sell in grocery store and call tomatoes because that’s what they look like. Lovely purples ready for picking.

I remember a local farmer would set up a serve yourself table with tomato and onion, not any more. They would even steal his Honesty Jar. People ruined it, or some people ruined it, he grew some very delicious produce.