A Sad Day

[Decado]

Today I've realized that I can no longer eat tomatoes. All my life my stomach has been fine with them but for the past few weeks whenever I eat them I get horrible acid reflux, which is weird because I can eat tomato based things and just get mild heartburn. So I was wondering, are there any varieties of tomato that are less acidic, and would be better on the stomach?

[The Helpful Gardener]

Sorry to hear, Dec, but don't give up yet. The green and white varieties are VERY low acid; try some of those...

HG

[Decado]

What exactly would those varieties be? I've never heard of green and white varieties.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Here's whites aplenty...

and here's greens. I have grown Green Striper and liked the flavor but the bearing was a little lax, as it often is with heirlooms. But don't give up! There is always a right plant for every situation, we just need to keep looking...

HG

[Decado]

Well thanks for the help HG, I'll have to start figuring out which of these I want to plant for next year.

[cynthia_h]

Check out the light-colored varieties.

At least cooked tomatoes have more of their lycopenes activated than raw ones do... *so sorry for you*

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[taylor910]

charcoal pills are a natural remedy for acid reflux. You take them before you eat. Worth a shot-


Or just chew some tums?

[Decado]

OTC stuff doesn't seem to work at all, maybe a prescription would help though.

[Gary350]

When we get old our body goes hay wire. I got a bottle of Walgreens Antacid Tablets Extra Strength assorted fruit flavor 96 tablets per bottle. I take 3 tables before drinking coffee. I take 3 to 5 tables after eating BBQ sauce and spicy hot foods. I don't have a problem with tomatoes. I can eat what I want and the tablets nutrelizes the acid.

Also buy some low acid tomatoes.

[hendi_alex]

My grandfather developed an intolerance for high acid tomatoes. I remember him growing a large yellow 'low acid' variety. I just read an article from Dave's garden. One apparently reliable source from Texas A&M (TAMU) said that there is really no such thing as a low acid tomato. Said that any differences in acidity are negligible, and percieved difference is due to the presence of greater sugar content which causes the tomato to taste less acidic.

If I had the problem, I would experiment. Maybe do as suggested above and follow the meal with an antacid, or better yet pair the tomatoes with a balanced meal, so as to dilute or even partially neutralize the tomato acid in the stomach. Also, don't eat too much volume or too late, as that will contribute to acid reflux at night. One last note, according to the TAMU info, all tomatoes have an acidity of around 4.6. That is no where near the acidity of the stomach environment which has a pH of around 2. So there is no way that tomatoes will make your stomach contents more acidic. My guess is that some other factor is at work. Decrease the amount of tomatoes eaten at one sitting and follow the other two recs above and maybe the problem will go away.

If that doesn't work, then perhaps your body has simply developed an intolerance or an allergy to raw tomatoes. From doing a quick google, it appears that it is fairly common for a person to not be able to eat fresh tomatoes, while having no problem at all from processed tomato products. Good luck, I'm certainly sympathetic, as a loss of fresh tomatoes from my diet would be losing a best friend.

[Decado]

My grandfather developed an intolerance for high acid tomatoes. I remember him growing a large yellow 'low acid' variety. I just read an article from Dave's garden. One apparently reliable source from Texas A&M (TAMU) said that there is really no such thing as a low acid tomato. Said that any differences in acidity are negligible, and percieved difference is due to the presence of greater sugar content which causes the tomato to taste less acidic.

If I had the problem, I would experiment. Maybe do as suggested above and follow the meal with an antacid, or better yet pair the tomatoes with a balanced meal, so as to dilute or even partially neutralize the tomato acid in the stomach. Also, don't eat too much volume or too late, as that will contribute to acid reflux at night. One last note, according to the TAMU info, all tomatoes have an acidity of around 4.6. That is no where near the acidity of the stomach environment which has a pH of around 2. So there is no way that tomatoes will make your stomach contents more acidic. My guess is that some other factor is at work. Decrease the amount of tomatoes eaten at one sitting and follow the other two recs above and maybe the problem will go away.

If that doesn't work, then perhaps your body has simply developed an intolerance or an allergy to raw tomatoes. From doing a quick google, it appears that it is fairly common for a person to not be able to eat fresh tomatoes, while having no problem at all from processed tomato products. Good luck, I'm certainly sympathetic, as a loss of fresh tomatoes from my diet would be losing a best friend.

I think you're right about the intolerance, because I get this from just a slice of tomato on a sandwich, and no amount of antacid pills or chewables seem to help. Plus I can eat other very spicy or acidy foods without getting more than easily cureable heartburn. That makes it even more depressing .

Edit: Another thing to add, I can eat grocery store tomatoes or uncooked tomatoes from restaurants just fine, why would the garden tomatoes affect me differently? Is it possible my soil pH is too low?

[The Helpful Gardener]

Yup. You are what you eat and what you eat is what it eats (paraphrasing Dr. Carey Reams)...

HG

[pepper4]

Don't feel too bad Decado, I am allergic to tomatoes. Swell up and break out in hives everytime I ate them. They say it's the acid in them that does it. I wonder if I would be safe eating the ones very low in acid some of you spoke of. Kind of afraid to just try it to find out.

[Diane]

Hives and swelling? Only if you're outside of a hospital when you do.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Hey tomatoes are in the Nightshade family; stands to reason somebody is just not going to be able to handle that (originally, they were thought to be poisonous to everybody!)

HG