US scientists are working on generating electricity from pulped tomatoes

The people chucking tomatoes at the annual festival at Buñol in Spain — seared in desi memory by the film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara — should be informed that the lycopene in the pulpy vegetable can trigger the generation of electrical charges. Scientists in the US clearly concerned about what to do with surplus or damaged tomatoes are developing a new device that has the capacity to crank out 0.3 watts of electricity from every 10 mg of the red mush. If it can indeed be operationalised, it would certainly trump the plan of a deputy commissioner in Karnataka to convert tomato surplus into animal fodder. Given the amount of squashed fruit left behind by La Tomatina revellers every year, Spanish authorities should be made aware that a powerful source of renewable energy is being allowed to literally go down the drain.

This new discovery should get tomato fans all charged up, especially considering it appears to be far more useful than the current tomato-oriented phenomenon commanding worldwide attention: the video of a tomato being ‘un’-sliced, that too in a painfully slow manner. Why it should prove to be more therapeutic and soothing than similar visuals of other soft fruit and vegetables being similarly ‘un’divvied-up is unclear, but there is obviously more to the vegetable than its ability to tart up a pizza, chilli or curry.