Am I right to be pissed off about this?

[Cassandra]

$4 for a pint container of yellow cherry tomatoes at the greenmarket. The next morning, before I had gotten a chance to eat any, I noticed a stain on the side of the box. I peeked inside and saw a squashed tomato, so I pulled it out by the stump of the stem and discovered it was crawling with maggots. :puke: They were on some of the other tomatoes, too, so I dumped the whole box in the garbage. Is this just a normal occurance or did the seller mishandle his product? I am way grossed out.

[Stinky The Clown]

1. A while back we bought some fresh flounder filets ......

.... which we planned to eat the next day. When I opened them up to cook them, the smell was so bad it peeled the wallpaper. I rewrapped them and took them back to the store. I handed them to the fish guy who asked what was wrong. I said 'open it and you tell me'. He did.

After the cashier gave me my money back, she said they didn't need to see spoiled fresh items to give a refund. :)

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

2. I don't even buy fish or seafood anymore without sniffing it

right there in the market. I'll peel back the wrapper, sniff & if it's okay, hand it to the counter help to wrap it back up. If I'm buying it out of the case I ask if s/he'll let me sniff first. I've been burned too many times.

[babylonsister]

4. Same thing happened to me w/ pork ribs - vomit inducing! nt

[wildeyed]

3. Bring your receipt back to the store and get a refund.

It is so inconvenient when that happens. You think you have all the necessary ingredients for a meal, and then you don't. :(

[Cassandra]

5. It was a stand at the greenmarket...

so there's no store and no receipt and I hope I can remember which farmer I bought it from (the one with more boxes of yellow cherry tomatoes, probably) and the market is only open four days a week and that farmer may only be there on Saturdays.
I still have my original question, though; is finding maggots on my tomatoes totally outrageous or is it just something that happens sometimes when something comes direct from the farm?

[wildeyed]

6. Outrageous.

Organic, locally grown produce does not keep as long as conventional produce, but you should get more than one day storage time.

I have had fruit rot on me, but never maggots, eeeewwww!

[Gormy Cuss]

7. Maggots don't live on tomatoes.

There are wormlike critters that sometimes attack tomatoes but I'd bet the problem here is that your basket had been sitting around too long.

Sometimes tomatoes can be infested with tomato fruit worms. They're little pale greenish or pinkish worms that burrow deep in the fruit. A farmer would know if he/she had this problem however -- it's not a subtle infestation as a rule because it ruins the fruit.

[Cassandra]

8. These were small and pale...

about 3mm long. They had pretty much hollowed out one tomato and were working on the next one.

[Gormy Cuss]

9. That's really tiny.

There are also tomato pinworms (small, but I think bigger than 3mm) but I've never seen them here so can't help you with an ID. If you go back to the green market tell the farmer. The worst that will happen is you'll be blown off but I've noticed that most farmers who participate in markets care a lot about the quality of their products.

[Cassandra]

16. I've been thinking you might be right ...

and they may have been a bit larger than 3mm. Anyway, I went back today and told them but the people they have sell for them didn't know enough to deal with the information, so they gave me a $2 refund and I bought some larger tomatoes that are easier to examine.

[Karenca]

12. The Union Square GreenMarket?

I've never had a problem.
It seems outrageous to me.

Maybe it has something to do with the extreme heat?

[Cassandra]

13. Yes.

I've never had this problem before either. It was hot last Saturday but the bugs didn't arrive just because of the heat.

[Karenca]

14. No, it's unlikely that it was the heat

Sorry, That's really horrible.

[mike_c]

10. they were probably fruit fly larvae, and only eat the rotting fruit...

...because most of their nutrition actually comes from the microbes causing decomposition. In other words, there was NOTHING wrong with the other fruit you threw away-- only the burst fruit was actually decomposing. Near the end of their larval period, the larvae wander away from their food source (it attracts predators as well) to pupate-- those were likely the ones you saw on other tomatoes, but they don't burrow inside or anything-- they just look for quiet places away from the food source to pupate.

Simply throwing away the rotting tomato and rinsing off the others would have been sufficient. I mean, if you were REALLY worried about it you could dunk them in a weak bleach solution (5%-7% is fine) for a few seconds then rinse them, but I think you overreacted as it was. Fly larvae (maggots) living in decomposing fruit are no dirtier than the fruit itself.

[Cassandra]

11. These were noticably longer than fruit fly larvae...

(oh, long ago days in biology class) so I think it might have been one of the other possibilities.

[mike_c]

17. there are quite a few different flies that live in rotting fruit...

...not just the Drosophila melangaster you remember from biology class. There really isn't anything else that's likely-- there are some moth caterpillars that feed on tomatoes, some are quite a problem, but they don't attack the fruit and they're MUCH bigger than maggots, usually found singly, etc. And NONE of the fly larvae-- maggots-- destroy healthy fruit. They need rotting fruit because they actually live on the microorganisms doing the decomposition. They're opportunistic on fruit that has burst, etc-- farmers markets are a perfect place to pick them up since the fruit is outside and available to the adult flies, who'll find the damaged fruit and lay eggs directly on the exposed flesh. I'm really convinced that's what you found. If it happens again, PM me and I can make arrangements to identify the maggots if you like.

[kestrel91316]

15. Leave it to Mike c the entomologist to know these ICKY details about

maggots in tomatoes. LOL