Are tomatoes fruit or vegetables? Veg or fruit? The answer can be summed up by this phrase: “Knowledge is knowing that tomatoes are a fruit; wisdom is not putting them in a fruit salad”. This food is a staple ingredient in every kitchen. Raw, cooked, roasted, in sauces, in salads (apart from fruit salads, obviously) …the possibilities are practically endless.
In the Argosol Export greenhouses, tomatoes are one of our star products. Do you want to know more about this delicious fruit and how we grow them? Let us tell you…
Ir a la tienda1,75 €The main component of tomatoes is water: approximately 94% of a tomato’s weight is water. This gives them their freshness and great flavour, making them an excellent base for many sauces such as the ever-popular Bolognese.
Tomatoes are a powerful addition to your diet
One of the main benefits of tomatoes is that they help to control your weight, since 100 grams of tomato only contains 18 calories (kcal). What’s more, less than 4% of the serving weight is carbohydrates, split between sugars and dietary fibres that are essential for our body. Does the good news end there? Absolutely not! Tomatoes are also a great source of vitamins and minerals…
Rich in vitamins and minerals
Retinol (vitamin A), thiamine (vitamin B1), niacin (vitamin B3), B6, C, E, K… tomatoes are a multivitamin complex. 100 grams will provide between 3 – 8% of an adult’s recommended daily intake.
Not least vitamin C. Just 100 grams of tomato contains 23% of your daily vitamin C requirements. Magnesium, manganese, phosphorus and potassium are just some of the minerals that we get from eating tomatoes. Being low in sodium, they are also recommended to people suffering from hypertension.
Other benefits of tomatoes
Have you heard of lycopene? It’s an antioxidant substance present in tomatoes that helps prevent heart problems, and regular consumption has been shown to lower levels of LDL cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood. If you want to increase your fibre intake and improve your digestive health, it’s best to eat tomatoes with the skin on. The fibre will help to prevent constipation and diarrhoea. Other studies suggest that tomatoes can counteract the harmful effects of tobacco to some extent, help the skin to counteract the effects of UV rays and, thanks to their natural antioxidants, prevent aging.
The scientific name for the tomato is Solanum lycopersicum, and its name comes from an ancient Mexica language where the fruit was known as tomatl. Their flavour comes from simple sugars and organic acids, which lend them their characteristic sweet and tangy flavour.
Tomato cultivation is spread globally and the varieties grown vary in size, from cherry tomatoes (between 1 and 2 centimetres in diameter) to beef tomatoes, which can exceed 10 centimetres in diameter.
Different varieties of tomato
Aussie, Black cherry, Brandywine, Pear cherry, Green sausage, Kumato, Manitoba, Muchamiel, Raf, Girona pear, Sun sugar, Valencian… there are many varieties of tomato grown.
One of the most characteristic tomatoes of Almería is the Raf tomato, which is produced from the artificial selection of traditional tomatoes, and whose name comes from the Spanish abbreviation of “resistant to Fusarium”. With maturation occurring from the inside out, the Raf tomato has a characteristic sweet flavour due to the balance of its sugars and acidity. These sugars are produced by the plant counterbalancing the salinity of the water, which must be carefully controlled.
Over the last few years, snack tomatoes have had the greatest increase in demand and are a regular in Agrosol Export’s annual plan. To give you an idea of their popularity, it’s expected that demand for snack tomatoes will increase up to 50% in Germany and the United Kingdom over the next decade. They are very small and refreshing fruits, ideal for healthy snacking, using whole in salads, or using as a garnish or decoration on meals. They’re also ideal for getting children used to eating fruit and veg, since they already come ready to eat.
Optimum conditions for growing tomatoes
The optimum temperature for growing tomatoes is between 20 and 30 degrees centigrade during the day, and dips to below 18 degrees at night. Higher temperatures affect the fertilised ovaries and consequently the correct development and growth of the fruit. Very low temperatures affect the growth of the plant in general. You have to be particularly careful with temperatures during the flowering period, so as to ensure fertilisation. Humidity should be at a level of around 70%.
Our greenhouses in Almería are blessed with the famous Andalusian sun, which is crucial to tomato growth because they require very bright conditions. Tomato plants do not cope well in waterlogged conditions, so proper draining of the soil is also important.
Agrosol tomatoes
This season, Agrosol Export are growing three types of tomato: piccolo tomatoes, baby plums and vine tomatoes.
The origin of tomatoes traces back to different parts of Mesoamerica, where there is evidence that the Mexicas and Aztecs grew them. In pre-Hispanic times they ate a type of green tomato, but following the arrival of the Spanish, red tomatoes overtook the green ones in popularity thanks to their more appetising colour and ability to stay fresh for longer after being picked.
After the conquest of the Aztec city Tenochtitlán (now Mexico City), it is thought that Hernán Cortés brought small yellow tomatoes across to Europe. One of the reasons that led us to believe this is that the first tomatoes to be popularised in Europe were yellow. In fact, the Italian word for tomato, “pomodoro”, comes from “pomi d’oro” (golden apple), referring to the yellow colour of these tomatoes. Today, red tomatoes are the most globally widespread.
In Great Britain and its colonies, tomatoes were considered unfit for human consumption for many years. This was thanks to a misconception made by John Gerard, one of the first people to write about the tomato. Gerard thought that the fruit was toxic because of the presence of toxic compounds in the leaves and stems. This idea didn’t last and nowadays tomatoes are extremely popular across the English-speaking world, which Agrosol Export can confirm, since the United Kingdom is one of our lead markets.
Tomatoes are an essential ingredient in our kitchens, so we have brought you 3 recipes that let you use them as part of a delicious and healthy meal:
ANDALUSIAN GAZPACHO
Gazpacho is a cold soup made from tomatoes and other raw vegetables. Because it is such a widely made dish, the recipe for gazpacho can vary between families (with cucumber, without cucumber, with bread, without bread…). We have brought you a quick and refreshing recipe.
TOMATO ON TOAST
With various regional varieties, tomato on toast is a traditional dish in Mediterranean cuisine. Pa amb tomàquet, pa amb tomata, pa amb oli… It has many different names across the Mediterranean and in Andalucía it is called Media con tomate. Whatever its name, it makes a delicious breakfast, snack or accompaniment to a main meal.
TOMATO SOUP
Tomatoes aren’t just for summer; they are also great for making sauces. This fantastic soup can be eaten hot:
Tomato production exceeds more than 100 million tonnes worldwide. The leading global producer of tomatoes is China, where 85% of production is bound for export, mainly in the form of paste or tomato purée. Other big tomato producers are India, the United States and Turkey. In the last 50 years, the average global yield has increased per surface area, reaching around 36 tonnes of tomatoes per hectare.
Snack tomatoes, a valuable export
Snack tomatoes have become the most successful, with pear cherry, round cherry and cocktail tomatoes increasing in popularity across the British and German markets. In these countries, almost a third of tomatoes consumed are snack tomatoes, and this figure could increase to 50% within the next decade.
In developed countries, tomato consumption is increasing whilst production is declining. One clear case is the United States, whose consumption has increased to around £1 billion in the last decade, but whose production has decreased by around £700 million. This trend, which is common in many developed countries, is widening the market for producers like Agrosol, who are dedicated to the exportation of fresh produce.