Don’t Judge a Tomato by its Shape and Other Life Lessons

I am hooked on heirloom tomatoes.  I recently started buying them because I was intrigued with how really great they smelled; just like a home grown tomato.  Their shape and color was a little weird for me which is why I shied away from them for so long.  I am not used to yellow tomatoes and the brownish purple ones, well they are just too weird for me to approach; or so I thought.

I grew up with a large vegetable garden in our backyard and spent many hours weeding, so I know what a home grown tomato should look, smell and taste like. Ours were all round and red and they tasted great. Compare that to today when the majority of tomatoes in the grocery store have little to no smell or taste but oh how perfectly red and round they are. What happened? Stores and distributors that sell vegetables noticed that people only buy tomatoes that are perfectly round and red, so they only bought from the farms the variety of tomato that was the best looking and not necessarily the best tasting.  The farmers’ only give us what we buy/want and I guess what we want is predictability, familiarity, and the status quo.

Isn’t that the way we approach life and people? We are more comfortable with our own “type” and assume that those that are perfectly put together have a great life and those that have lumps and bumps; well they won’t be as interesting. We may not approach someone because of the way they look on the outside, or enter a situation where we are unfamiliar and haven’t done it before.

Let’s take a lesson from the tomato and bite into the weirdest looking heirloom that you can find.  You will be amazed at how delicious and satisfying the experience will be. Maybe then you will have the courage to go after that new job, approach that interesting person, or just shake up your life by doing what you always dream of. Don’t judge a tomato by its shape or color and let the flavors of life burst forth.