in cocktails such as the Bloody Mary. Storage Tomatoes keep best unwashed at room temperature and out of direct sunlight. It is not recommended to refrigerate them as this can harm the flavour. Tomatoes stored cold tend to lose their flavour permanently. Storing stem down can prolong shelf life, as it may keep from rotting too quickly. Tomatoes that are not yet ripe can be kept in a paper bag till ripening. Tomatoes are easy to preserve whole, in pieces, as tomato sauce or paste by home canning. They are acidic enough to process in a water bath rather than a pressure cooker as most vegetables require. The fruit is also preserved by drying, often in the sun, and sold either in bags or in jars with oil. Safety Plant toxicity The leaves, stem, and green unripe fruit of the tomato plant contain small amounts of the alkaloid tomatine, whose effect on humans has not been studied. They also contain small amounts of solanine, a toxic alkaloid found in potato leaves and other plants in the nightshade family. However, solanine concentrations in foliage and green fruit are generally too small to be dangerous unless large amounts are consumed—for example, as greens. Small amounts of tomato foliage are sometimes used for flavoring without ill effect, and the green fruit of unripe red tomato varieties is sometimes used for cooking, particularly as fried green tomatoes. There are also tomato varieties with fully ripe fruit that is still green. Compared to potatoes, the amount of solanine in unripe green or fully ripe tomatoes is low. However, even in the case of potatoes, while solanine poisoning resulting from dosages several times the normal human consumption has been demonstrated, actual cases of poisoning from excessive consumption of potatoes are rare. Tomato plants can be toxic to dogs if they eat large amounts of the fruit, or chew plant material. Salmonella Tomatoes were linked to seven Salmonella outbreaks between 1990 and 2005, and may have been the cause of a salmonellosis outbreak causing 172 illnesses in 18 US states in 2006. The 2008 United States salmonellosis outbreak caused the temporary removal of tomatoes from stores and restaurants across the United States and parts of Canada, although other foods, including jalapeño and serrano peppers, may have been involved. Nutrition A raw tomato is 95% water, contains 4% carbohydrates, and has less than 1% each of fat and