The terms we use for food have fallen from the original English. The word “natural” used to mean “existing in or formed by nature,” as in grown within the natural world and existing according to natural laws. Today, “natural” doesn’t mean anything close to that definition when it comes to food.

If you buy a tomato from the supermarket, you assume that the vegetable (or fruit, as a tomato is actually a fruit) is natural. It looks like a tomato; the sign below says it is a tomato. The clerk directed you to that aisle when you asked for tomatoes. They must be tomatoes, right?

Maybe it is time to redefine the terms for what we actually eat. A red fruit that has never been genetically modified and is grown on a vine in someone’s naturally fertilized, poison-free backyard or farm is a tomato. This fruit will typically taste extremely good. You will want to eat more than one.

A shiny red fruit sold at your local supermarket that is labeled as a “tomato” has been engineered in a laboratory. It is a “fruit” that has been injected with fish genes via the bacterium E. coli. It has been planted in fields and “fertilized” with modern chemicals and then sprayed with various poisons to kill bugs.

Perhaps this type of “tomato” should be called something else, like “fishato.” Or maybe it is time to rename truly unaltered tomatoes to something else, so they can be distinguished from the fraudulent ones more likely seen at the local grocery store. Perhaps everyone should consider being in an alcohol rehab program to wean the population off fraudulent drinks. It’s a logical conclusion: if the tomatoes have been dangerously altered, what have modern scientists done with the hops, barley, and other ingredients in beer?