Cherry tomatoes can easily be grown in a garden or indoors. In comparison to other varieties, their fruit is ready to pick earlier in the year and produce a high yield. Cherry tomatoes are used to prepare a wide variety of dishes.
Culinary uses:
You can use cherry tomatoes in a wide variety of dishes. Raw cherry tomatoes can be used to make many different types of salads, and you can use them cooked as a side dish or in sauces, soups, or juices.
Storing:
Translated from “de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomate”: If stored too long the skin of the tomato will get thin and withered, the flesh will shrink down, and the entire tomato will feel soft and mushy. At this point, it is still edible and not rotten. Tomatoes give off ethylene gas as they ripen and during storage. Therefore, they should be stored separately from other fruits and vegetables as this can hasten their ripening and can cause them to spoil sooner.
From “en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato”: Tomatoes keep best unwashed at room temperature and out of direct sunlight. It is not recommended to refrigerate them as this can harm the flavor.
Tomatoes stored cold tend to lose their flavor permanently. Storing stem down can prolong shelf life, as it may keep from rotting too quickly. Tomatoes that are not yet ripe can be kept in a paper bag till ripening.
Nutritional information:
Wikipedia: A tomato is 95% water, contains 4% carbohydrates and less than 1% each of fat and protein. In a 100-gram amount, raw tomatoes supply 18 calories and are a moderate source of vitamin C (17% of the Daily Value), but otherwise are absent of significant nutrient content.
Health aspects:
No conclusive evidence indicates that the lycopene in tomatoes or in supplements affects the onset of cardiovascular diseases or cancer. In the United States, supposed health benefits of consuming tomatoes, tomato products or lycopene to affect cancer cannot be mentioned on packaged food products without a qualified health claim statement. In a scientific review of potential claims for lycopene favorably affecting DNA, skin exposed to ultraviolet radiation, heart function and vision, the European Food Safety Authority concluded that the evidence for lycopene having any of these effects was inconclusive.
Plant toxicity:
Leaves, stems, and green unripe fruit of the tomato plant contain small amounts of the alkaloid tomatine, whose effect on humans has not been studied. They also contain small amounts of solanine, a toxic alkaloid found in potato leaves and other plants in the nightshade family. Use of tomato leaves in herbal tea has been responsible for at least one death. However, levels of tomatine in foliage and green fruit are generally too small to be dangerous unless large amounts are consumed, for example, as greens. Small amounts of tomato foliage are sometimes used for flavoring without ill effect, and the green fruit is sometimes used for cooking, particularly as fried green tomatoes. Compared to potatoes, the amount of solanine in green or ripe tomatoes is low; however, even in the case of potatoes while solanine poisoning resulting from dosages several times normal human consumption has been demonstrated, actual cases of poisoning resulting from excessive consumption of potatoes that have high concentration of solanine are rare.
Tomato plants can be toxic to dogs if they eat large amounts of the fruit, or chew plant material.
General information:
A cherry tomato is a rounded, small fruited tomato thought to be an intermediate genetic admixture between wild currant-type tomatoes and domesticated garden tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes range in size from a thumbtip up to the size of a golf ball, and can range from being spherical to slightly oblong in shape. Although usually red, other varieties such as yellow, green, and black also exist. The more oblong ones often share characteristics with plum tomatoes, and are known as grape tomatoes. The berry tomato is regarded as a botanical variety of the cultivated berry, Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme.
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