The next time you will buy tomatoes from your grocery store, you should know the differences between GMO tomatoes and organic ones.

Vegetables are important to your health and should be incorporated into every meal that you take. Well, there is nothing better than eating fresh vegetables, not just fresh but organic vegetables. Sadly, the market has various brands of vegetables i.e. organic and GMO tomatoes.

The latter is a product of genetic engineering, which is essentially the science of modifying genes in plants so that it depicts traits that not genetically inherent to its species.

Organic vegetables, on the other hand, are those that are naturally grown with no interference of their genetic or natural state.

*Fact: GMO products are banned in most European countries such as Greece, Germany, and Austria just to mention a few. These countries believe that they are a great threat to the people and greatly contribute to life-threatening conditions such as smashed leukemia.

It’s thus crucial to understand the difference between the two if you want to pick out the healthiest and safest food for you and your family. If you go out to the grocery store and are not sure which product is which, here are simple ways of differentiating between GMO tomatoes from organic ones.

The method of labeling and coding

Almost everything in the store has a code number that uniquely identifies the product. For you to differentiate between a GMO tomato and an organic one, check the labeling and coding of the tomato.

If you find that it has four digits, then that is a GMO product, while the one with five digits is an organic one.

The first number in the code

In every code, there is a starting number that identifies the category of products in the store. You will find that the code number given to rice will differ from that given to fruits and vegetables. As said earlier GMO fruits and vegetables have four digits, their index code number always starts with the number 8.

On the other hand, organic fruits and vegetables have five digits with their code number starting with number 9.

It is not easy to tell what kind of fruit or vegetable by simply looking at it. So next time you go out for grocery shopping, be keen to look out for what you have just learned. Remember, organic products are far healthier compared to genetically modified ones.

So, don’t let ignorance risk your life and the lives of those you love!

References:



  1. https://www.ams.usda.gov/
  2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

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This Post Has 14 Comments

  1. Maja N Pablo

    umm, I think the picture used is misleading. I’ve been shopping at farmer’s markets and their tomatoes are always a beautiful, deep red color (the one on the left). It’s the GMO grocery tomatoes that look bright and light red (tomato on the right).

    1. Life Advancer

      hi Maja, thanks for letting us know and you are very right! we’ve fixed this confusion 🙂

  2. Louise Waters

    Strange I buy at farmers markets I always buy organic on everything. Of lately I have noticed them looking more like the gmo tomato you picture. Of course I have concerns that they pick tomatos half green way ahead of time so the insides do look immature. They say they get ripe I do not agree one bit about that coverup and told them so. Green is green underdeveloped tomatoes with hardly any nutritional value that will rot before they ripen. We need to hold the organically people responsible as well because the ignorant cover ups are not serving the public at all.

  3. Tim Fletcher

    There are NO GMO tomatoes on the market, so this is all silliness.

    1. David Buchanan

      What Tim said is true.

  4. Mariana Tirsoreanu

    You don’t have to look for the 4 digits code or 5 digits code for the organic products the price obviously will show the difference easily.

  5. Phyllis Bellucci

    They all look like the GMOs

  6. Camilla Ahlström

    But then you already paid for them.

  7. Gregory Bennett

    GMO is one label. Most produce has been genetically altered in some form or another. Most likely, you will have a hard time finding a non-GMO plant/seed. Organic aka non-pesticide is a different label. This is a more concerning issue. I wish the author would look up the terms/definitions before writing the article. Organic and GMO are two different things.

  8. Maria Amelia Faria Edell

    They are no good for tomato sauce.

    1. hans müller wohlfahrt

      yeah obviously

  9. Amber Skelley

    Adam you need to remember this, they both go in the garbage

  10. Niels Pijcke

    Gmo’s are fine mostly they’re just genetically altered so no pesticides are needed. Or to grow more easily. They differ 1 or 2 genes max from their original species

  11. 4noym0u5

    I have a friend who sells hothouse produce. He often gives me quantities of his older produce. I have a customer who does the same, so this is in reference to both people, who are probably getting it from the same source. The last 2 times I got tomatoes from these two people something really weird happened. The tomatoes were big and red on Saturday morning, by Sunday evening (just over 24 hours) they were covered with white mold and all but liquid.
    It just so happens we own an organic farm, (I don’t eat the produce from these two, I pass it on free to a neighbor whos facing bankruptcy) and I can tell you in real life tomatoes do NOT do that. They may crack open. they may discolor or get a spot or two in the course of 24 hours, but they certainly do NOT go from looking perfect one day to all but dissolving in a pile of moldy goo the next. Whatever these tomatoes are, These things are an abomination.

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