[snopercod]

The "Twinkie Defense" writ large.

[stevem]

For me it was always artichoke hearts and peas (peas to this very day). I haven't eaten peas since I got big enough to fight back.

[GreenCell]

This "defense" of non-social actions is just an excuse..substances may may you anti-social but, it's discipline and responsibility for "actions" that is the crux of the argument....

as one reader put it...and he's right, "the tomato-twinkie" defense will be here one day.

[P.O.E.]

I didn't have to read the article. I already saw the movie:

Can you believe this movie celebrated its 25th anniversary last year? Man, I'm gettin' old.

[thisiskubrick]

This article is a victory for the "bananas" industry.

[HairOfTheDog]

I have a friend who believes all this stuff. She obsesses about the ingredients in everything from her food to her toothpaste and laundry soap, and is convinced she and her children are 'allergic' to nearly everything. She says stuff like "Junior is allergic to tomatos and pickles. They make him hyperactive". If a child has a bad day, it must have been because he ate an unauthorized cookie somewhere.

Though I think we are what we eat, and I have no basis to argue with her, I know that she and her kids are always sick, and I (who eats nothing but junk food or whatever else is around) have not been sick in years. I don't know which came first, the obsession with ingredients or the constant illnesses, but she is, nevertheless, a hypocondriac.

[LibWhacker]

Politically correct "science" will lead nowhere.

[facedown]

burp

[Tennessee_Bob]

I never have liked tomatoes. Now I have a legitimate excuse for not eating them.

[KeyWest]

Since all the bad foods were veggies it does go a long way to explain the actions of PETA.

[rintense]

I KNEW IT! Anything with inards as slimy as tomatoes must be evil.

[Nov3]

The high glycemic load of the government recomended diet will be found responsible for a huge part of mental and physical illness. Just eat your 15 servings of grain and become diabetic and depressed.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

A member of the deadly nightshade family, tomatoes were erroneously thought to be poisonous (although the leaves are poisonous) by Europeans who were suspicious of their bright, shiny fruit. Native versions were small, like cherry tomatoes, and most likely yellow rather than red.

[buffyt]

Doris Rapp has some books on food allergies and behavior. We tried the food elemination diet on our oldest son when he was in elem. sch. and didn't figure out what he was allergic to, but I always noticed he went wild when he ate hot dogs or chocolate, any my other kids did, too. He was allergic to eggs when he was little, and still hates to eat them. Now the oldest son is allergic to codiene and ceclor. Ceclor, one pill, sent him into anaphyatic shock and we almost lost him a couple of years ago at Christmas time. A team of doctors and nurses worked feverishly on him for 6 hours in the emergency room, then he was in observation room for two more hours. It was touch and go. Allergies to food and drugs are REAL. I have a friend who has to carry a shot kit for allergic reactions to TOMATOES. I almost died of penicillin reaction. I am allergic to milk and chocolate. A friend of ours had to stop drinking beer, he craved it, but it made him MEAN. After he gave up beer, their marriage became strong again, he stopped beating her.

[Cicero]

My first impulse was to scoff. But there's probably something in this.

I suspect that nutritional science is probably in a pretty dismal state, because the organic chemistry of foods, vitamins, digestion, hormone production, and cell building is extremely complicated. We see that when doctors issue warnings not to eat one food and to eat plenty of another and then ten years later reverse themselves completely.

Given the lack of solid understanding of the physical processes involved, probably the two best sources are folk wisdom (which regretably was heavily suppressed by overconfidence in science) and statistical surveys like those mentioned here. And individual tests. How does Jimmy behave when he eats apples? When he doesn't eat them?

In other words, our real knowledge of diet is still extremely primitive.

[ricpic]

Eat your spinach Johnnie, or you'll grow up to be a SICK FREAK!

[dighton]

An excellent defense for mafiosi.

[strela]

Tomatoes, eh? I'm deathly allergic to 'em in the raw form. That explains a lot, I guess ...

[Contra]

Ah, the tomato defense, yes, people don't kill people, guns do, tomatos do, etc. Your honor, ladies and gentleman of the jury, when my client was 3 years old he ate a lot of tomatos and this made him into a vicious serial killer. It is not his fault, it was the tomatos. In fact, maybe one day they will determine that cereal makes someone into a serial killer. The cereal-serial link. Let's keep spending billions of taxpayer dollars to find out.

[aculeus]

Proof positive.