Why heirloom produce beats hybrid varieties nutritionally, how you can easily test this at home for yourself, and where to find these vegetables locally.
Heirloom vs hybrid produce? Â Hopefully, you understand how to recognize the difference because it makes a big difference to the nutrition you’re getting!
Yesterday at our buying club pickup, a local farmer dropped by to display and sell his beautiful selection of organic produce.
Not just any old organic produce, however.
Organic heirloom produce.
Most folks don’t realize that the organic produce at WalMart, Whole Foods, or even the local health food store is almost exclusively hybrid vegetables. Â Once in awhile you will see some heirloom veggies at the health food store, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
Now, I have nothing against organic produce from hybrid seeds. Â Hybrid is not to be confused with GMO, by the way.
If you’re going to pay the premium for organic, however, you might as well go for the best tasting produce. Â This will almost always be the heirloom varieties and not the modern hybrids at the store.
George DeVault, executive director of Seed Savers Exchange, the leading nonprofit organization dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom and other rare seeds says:
A lot of the breeding programs for modern hybrids have sacrificed taste and nutrition.  The standard Florida tomato is a good example. Instead of old-time juicy tangy tomatoes, it tastes like cardboard. It was bred to be picked green and gas-ripened because that’s what was needed for commercial growing and shipping.
Turns out that better taste means more nutritious too.  We as consumers are paying a  big price for the push by commercial growers for the higher yields and easier shipping (uniform size and ripening) provided by hybrid strains, particularly for organic produce.
I can tell you that organic produce from the store doesn’t taste nearly as good as it did 20 years ago which tells me that nutrition is poor. If you’ve ever used a refractometer to test the nutrient density of produce, you know that better taste means higher nutrition, a contest which heirloom veggies easily win compared with hybrids.
In this video below, I demonstrate the difference between a typical organic store tomato and two heirloom varieties from a local organic farmer.
Seeing is believing! Â Find a local produce farmer that grows heirloom varieties in rich soil and start enjoying the superior taste and nutrition for yourself. Â Supporting the production of heirloom varieties in your local community also fosters independence for our farmers as heirloom vegetables are open-pollinated which means the seed can be saved from year to year – saving the farmers an unnecessary expenditure each growing season.
Sources
Industrial Farming is Giving Us Less Nutritious Food
Heirloom Vegetables: Six Advantages Compared with Hybrids
How are Hybrid and Open Pollinated Vegetables Different?
More Information
4 Steps to Keep Monsanto OUT of Your Garden
The Hydroponic Invasion of USDA Organic
Our New Organic Garden Box and Rain Barrel Irrigation System
Why I Avoid Organic Hydroponics
Heirloom tomatoes are wonderful but it is the variety of the tomato that determines its color, taste, etc. Some are green when ripe, some orange, some yellow, some pink, some dark red or black. It’s all the variety. There are also some delicious hybrid tomatoes, Sungold comes to mind. It is, bar none, the most delicious cherry tomato you will ever taste. You won’t find it in a store, you have to grow your own. There are many hybrids for the home gardener and the taste is out of this world. I grow mostly Heirlooms because I like that they are open pollinated, but there are some excellent hybrids that taste amazing and some Heirlooms that taste like nothing. I think what you really mean is that it’s the insipid hybrids, bred just for transport and shelf life, that are to be avoided. Most of those you won’t find in seed catalogues. If you have a balcony or a deck, you can grow amazing tomatoes. Just use pots.
am i correct to assume that not all heirloom tomatoes (or any vegetables/fruits) are organic??
is it “safer” to eat them than the organic hybrid ones?
I ate what was quite possibly the best tasting tomato I’d ever had 2 days ago. It was a vine-ripened heirloom yellow tomato that I grew organically in my backyard and put in the refrigerator overnight to chill it. A little himalayan sea salt on it and mmmm !
I couldn’t agree with you more Sarah. Not that we need yet another reason to seek out heirloom varieties, but do you know about Mutation Breeding? It’s a common practice, which I’ve heard is also used in organic production, in which seeds are exposed to chemicals or radiation in order to generate mutants with desirable traits to be bred with other cultivars. Health effects have not been adequately tested and I personally would rather avoid them. Sticking to heirloom varieties of foods is one way to do this.
We grow only heirloom vegetables using organic practices.
Have you seen the new Walmart commercial where they switch farmer’s market fruits and veggies with Walmart fruits and veggies? Do they really believe that people go to farmer’s market to get more symmetrical, jumbo fruits? I guess it’s to convince the people who don’t actually go to Farmer’s Markets that they can be confident that their food is just as good.
Hobby gardeners dedicated to chemical free heirloom produce is your best, and cheapest source. Get to know, and support your neighbors that are dedicated to producing good healthy vegetables, dairy, meat, and eggs on as small scale.
I don’t know if these are organic or not but Publix sells the “Ugly Ripe” Tomato which is grown in Plant City. Once I tasted one of these, that is all I have purchased as it is just like you said….. the hybrids …. even organic…..taste like cardboard water.
FYI I did save the seeds and am growing them myself this year and they are going crazy. Last count I had 45 growing out there on 5 plants and there are many more flowers.
This is SO true! I don’t like the taste of tomatoes… just tomatoes… but when we purchased heirloom organic tomatoes…. WOW I could eat them like an apple!
Sarah, I love heirloom tomatoes but have grown them myself. You’ve inspired me – my next planting will be heirlooms!