Because they are different tomatoes, selected for long storage on shelves in shop, not for taste. Your garden tomato will be much tastier, but will start to spoil sooner.
Nope. I've seen many times seeds from letfover of tasteless salads grow into delicous plants after being just throw away in a fertile garden.
And honestly I met so many farmers that have no idea what tomatoes should taste like it's not even funny. Dining at their table, I hear them rejoice the produce in their plate is so good while I cringe because they feels like clown noses compared to the real thing.
Just like people can't fathom that we used to have bird migrations that cover the entire sky, people don't realize what we have lost with food. And they think they do, they think you are some kind of bragging posh to tell them that that's not supposed to be like this.
But I ate strawberries from my mother in law garden yesterday. It felt like eating sweets.
I haven't eaten some like that for 20 years, and I'm a very picky buyer.
Her soil is full of life.
Fruits and vegetable have been selected for being awesome for centuries. If you treat them well, you will not want to eat a kit kat instead.
But I don't blame the kids that do: currently, the kit kat tastes way better that whatever they have for lunch.
The tomato thing is no mystery - superparkets sell tomatoes taken off the vine weeks before they a ripe, because a ripe tomato is very gentle and will not survive handling.
And the message you are replying to is correct, supermarket tomatoes are different variety, farmers get paid for mass, not for taste.
Supermarkets have giant charts that determine shape, roundness, and colour of tomato. They will buy perfectly round, red tomato that tastes like water. They will not buy an ugly but tasty tomato from a farmer.
Interestingly enough consumers drove the market for tasteless tomatoes. customers bought more tomatoes that were more brightly colored and more round, which drove selection for these characteristics
Producers want to sell more, therefore they select varieties that look pretty, that are uniform in color and shape, they will also select varieties that keep for a long time for transport, or that grow bigger and ripen faster for better yields, being measured only by weight. Lots of factors but none related to taste or nutritional value. The consumer has very little say in all this.
Hmm, maybe because they can't select for taste? If it was possible to get sample of tomatoes or other vegetables before buying, maybe things would change?
