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Redlemon · 10-30-2003, 11:01 AM

I'm more familiar with the Dread Tomato Addiction, by Mark Clifton (1958):

Quote:

Ninety-two point four per cent of juvenile delinquents have eaten tomatoes. Eighty-seven point one per cent of the adult criminals in penitentiaries throughout the United States have eaten tomatoes. Informers reliably inform that of all known American communists, ninety-two point three per cent have eaten tomatoes. Eighty-four per cent of all people killed in automobile accidents during the year 1954 had eaten tomatoes. Those who object to singling out specific groups for statistical proofs require measurements within a total. Of those people born before the year 1850, regardless of race, age color, creed, or caste, and known to have eaten tomatoes, there has been one hundred per cent mortality! In spite of their dread addiction, a few tomato eaters born between 1850 and 1900 still manage to survive, but the clinical picture is poor -- their bones are brittle, their movements feeble, their skin seamed and wrinkled, their eyesight failing, hair falling, and frequently they have lost all their teeth. Those born between 1900 and 1950 number somewhat more survivors, but the overt signs of tghe addiction's dread effects differ not in kind but only in degree of deterioration. Prognostication is not hopeful. Exhaustive experiment shows that when tomatoes are withheld from an addict, invariable his cravings will cause him to turn to other substitutes -- such as oranges, or steak and potatoes. If both tomatoes and all substitutes are persistently withheld -- death invariable results within a short time! The skeptic of apocryphal statistics or the stubborn non-conformist who will not accept the clearly provided conclusions of others may conduct his own experiment. Obtain two dozen tomatoes - they may actually be obtained within a block of some high schools, or discovered growing in a respected neighbor's backyard! -crush them to a pulp in exactly the state they would have been if introduced into the stomach, pour the vile juice and pulp into a bowl, and place a goldfish therein. Within minutes the goldfish will be dead! Those who argue what affects a goldfish might now apply to a human being may, at their own choice, wish to conduct a different experiment by fully immersing a live human head into the mixture for a full five minutes.