-The tomato is in the same family as the potato, pepper, eggplant aka brinjal/aubergine, and petunia.-The French used to refer to the tomato as the “apple of love.”
-Tomatoes are a good source of vitamins A and C.
-A versatile vegetable for cooking, tomatoes can be prepared stuffed, baked, boiled, stewed, pickled, and fried, and are the base for many sauces.
- Tomatoes originally came from Peru.
-The scientific name for tomato is Lycopersicon lycopersicum meaning wolf peach.
- People used to be afraid to eat tomatoes, thinking them poisonous due to their relation to the belladonna or (deadly nightshade) plant.
-Tomatoes increase in weight as they ripen, even after harvesting.
-Tomatoes are the richest source of lycopene which is important for the health of the prostate gland in men.
-Scientists at Cornell University have identified two cancer-fighting substances in the tomato: P-courmaric and chlorogenic acids.
-The first tomatoes in Europe were yellow varieties, the Italian for tomato is pomodoro and translates to golden apple.
-A tomato is a fruit. The confusion arose after the 1890s when the US supreme court named them a vegetable for taxation purposes. A fruit is the edible part of the plant containing seeds, a vegetable is stem, leaf or root.
-There is no mention of tomatoes in either the bible or in the complete works of shakespeare.
-Tomato seedlings have been grown in space.
-There are over 10,000 varieties of tomato, these come in a variety of colours including pink, purple, black, yellow and white.
Compiled from: Quickdrop, Factmonster
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