While I was cutting a tomato into slices today, with a view to making a caprese, and thereby removed the green stem in the middle, I remembered amusedly the episode of “Gräfin gesucht” ^[1] that I had watched the other day. The desperate single count, who had also planned a Caprese for dinner, was therefore cutting plenty tiny cherry tomatoes into halves, whereupon countess applicant Mirja, who was acting quite awkwardly in the kitchen, lectured him with a saw from her rich treasure of experience: “You have to cut out the green part. It’s totally harmful. I admittedly don’t know anything else about cooking, but this I know.”

Well, she’s not nearly standing alone with her strong belief in the inevitable lethality of the tomato stem – but did anyone ever wonder why a vegetable with such a harmful and even life-endangering ingredient is being sold in shops legally, just like that? Wouldn’t strictest safety precautions according to Controlled Substances and Chemicals Act be indicated here? Why doesn’t the government do anything to protect us from the red-green menace?

The answer is clear: This is a large-scale conspiracy. It goes all the way up to the top. Worldwide, 120 million tons of tomatoes are being cultivated every year, trending upward. Outrider with 31 million tons – whopping 25,8 % of the world tomato production – is the People’s Republic of China, followed by the EU (17 mio. tons) and the USA (11 mio. tons). Nobody can say for sure how much money we are talking about here, but in view of such numbers, it might be clear that at least these three main producers of tomatoes will do their utmost to maintain the reputation of the tomato – even if human lives are at stake.

For the green part of the tomato contains solanine, an alkaloid mainly present in plants of the night shade family (Solanaceae), which can cause toxic symptoms like burning and scratching of the throat, diarrhea an nausea. In higher doses though, it can also lead to dizziness, anxiety states, attacks of sweating, breathlessness, unconsciousness, cramps and even death. This may as well have been the reason why in the Middle Ages the tomato was also declared a “Devil’s fruit” or “Devil’s apple”. Besides, there had to be something odd about such a temptingly red fruit – it could only have been created by Satan himself.
But back to science: How dangerous is the tomato stem really? According to the German Nutrition Association, the consumption of ca. 25 milligrams of solanine is toxic, 400 milligrams lethal. In unripe green tomatoes, a solanine content of 9 to 32 milligrams was measured per 100 grams. If we assume that the green stem accounts for approximately 10 % of any tomato, that results in a lethal dose of 12,5 to 44,44 kilograms of tomatoes – an amount that may of course easily be exceeded by accident.

Only recently, I had to attend the funeral of a good friend who had passed on after the consumption of a five-course menu consisting of Bloody Mary, Pomodori secchi, Gazpacho, Spaghetti alla napoletana and candied tomatoes. And that is but one of many fates. Aside from the fact that the juice of unripe tomatoes has been serving the South American indians as deadly arrow poison for hundreds of years already, people keep eating themselves into their own graves by means of tomatoes. Prominent example Mozart: Weeks before his death already, he was satisfied that he had been poisoned. And in a way he was right – but how should he have anticipated that it was his preference for the juicy vegetable, that became his undoing? As for Elvis Presley, one can also get musing in view of the official cause of death, “cardiac arrest due to central respiratory failure”, and Kurt Cobain’s alleged heroinism was actually nothing else but a severe tomato addiction.

One or two may now ask themselves: “Assuming all this to be true, why have I never heard about that until now?” The answer is simple: The tomato lobby is huge and exceptionally powerful. They have sufficient means to hush things up, and the low voice of the few resistance fighters gets lost in the barking for the tomato stirred up by the multi billion dollar tomato industry. Even the “Ad Hoc Committee for the Objective Revaluation of Solanum lycopersicum”, that I had personally originated, has been subverted and sabotaged through clever legal moves. The annual great tomato destruction at the “Tomatina” in Buñol sure is a commendable approach which has meanwhile gained worldwide visibility, yet its character remains of symbolic nature.

In the end, the only way open to us is resistance in microcosm. Protect your family, your friends and acquaintances! Enlighten them about the dangers that come along with tomatoes! With every tomato stem cut out, you possibly save a man’s life. Especially children should early be taught that they have to cut the green part out of the tomato, not because it is woody and tastes dumb – no, but because it is toxic. Lethal.
Help waking up mankind and warning of the tomato conspiracy! Top-class TV programs like “Gräfin gesucht” are but a silver lining on the horizon – what we need are further authorities like Mirja, who provide worldwide clarification with their tomato-specific expert knowledge.