Fruit or Vegetable   Vegetable (botanically a fruit!)

Color   Fruit: yellow, orange, red, purple, striped green and red, green, and more!

Edible Parts   Fruits and seeds (stem and leaves are toxic to humans)

Season   Year-round (peak summer)

Seeds vs cutting   Both

How it grows   Bush with fruits (determinate) or Vine (indeterminate)

Nutrition   Beta-carotene, biotin, lycopene, vitamin C. Supports: cancer, hair, heart, immunity, nails, sun exposure

Tomatoes are from South America where their wild ancestors remain as bitter, blueberry sized fruits on long vining plants with lycopene levels 40 times higher than modern tomatoes! Lycopene in tomatoes protects tomatoes and humans from UV rays. Seed breeding for the perfect red tomato spread a gene that resulted in lower lycopene in all modern red tomatoes. The oldest existing recipe found in hieroglyphics is the original salsa: tomatoes, chili peppers and salt! The French called tomatoes pommes d’amour or “love apples.” Most tomatoes are grown commercially with copious amounts of chemicals, picked before they are ripe and sprayed with ethylene gas to ripen. Always buy from local, organic farms or grow your own!