THE DREAD TOMATO ADDICTION [1958]
by Mark Clifton

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 State 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 1800, regardless of race, 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 1800 and 1850 still manage to survive [remember, this was written in 1958], 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 1850 and 1900 number somewhat more survivors, but the overt signs of the 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 substitutes such as oranges, or steak and potatoes. If both tomatoes and all substitutes are persistently withheld--death invariably results within a short time!