Tomatoes are a versatile and popular food that has been enjoyed for centuries. Their juicy texture and sweet flavor make them a perfect addition to any garden. Tomatoes are an interesting crop because they are easily affected by their surroundings.
Bugs, wind, sunlight, soil, and support all play into the flavor and size of the tomato. It’s understandable, that come harvest time, you look inside one of them is shocked to see your tomatoes are green on the inside! Tomatoes are a member of the nightshade family, and many people have been taught to be cautious with them.
We’ll explore why this happened and answer the question: ‘Are green tomatoes OK to eat?’.
Why Tomatoes Are Green on the Inside
The insides of tomatoes can be green because of chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is naturally occurring in most plants. Tomatoes grow from the inside out. As the outside matured and turned red, the inside stayed green. This can happen for a few reasons which we will go over below.
The Tomato May Be Unripe
It’s the simplest and most common explanation. While the rest of your tomatoes may have come out fine, the plant is a unique organism. A few may have been slow developers or you may have jumped the gun and harvested too early.
The Tomato Plant Was Stressed
Tomatoes are sensitive plants and they only truly thrive under perfect conditions. Many irregular factors in their environment, typically their watering schedule, can put stress on the plant. This causes the plant to not transfer nutrients as efficiently, stunting the production of its fruit. Factors that can also cause your tomato plant stress are too much or little fertilizer, losing too many leaves while growing, a potassium deficiency, or pests.
The Tomato Was Crossbred
Saying that the tomato is supposed to be like that may sound like a cop-out but with many varieties of tomatoes cross-pollinating with each other it is a possibility. In this case, I’m referring more to if the ‘gel’ inside the tomato is green or has a greenish hue. Depending on where you got your seeds or if any cross-pollination occurred, this may have happened to you. Some types of tomatoes have naturally green gel.
Is it OK to eat tomatoes that are green inside?
100% yes it is alright to eat tomatoes that are still green. The severity of how green and how much of the tomato is green doesn’t matter. The green is just chlorophyll, which is safe for human consumption. Bias aside, some recipes call for green tomatoes as they have a sharper flavor profile than their red siblings. Green tomatoes will be less sweet and far firmer than red.
