Green Light with Chris Long - Jalen Rose on NBA Restarting. Fruit Ranking with Jimmy Traina. Apples Are Trash, Johnny Hekker Disagrees. Tomato is a Fruit.

Episode Date: July 14, 2020

1:00 - Open and Chris' Disgust of Apples. 14:16 - Johnny Hekker Defends Apples. 24:34 - Craig "NC Tomato Man" LeHoullier on Tomatoes and Favorite Fruit. 35:57 - Jimmy Traina on Favorite Fruit and Italian Ice. 1:12:27 - Jalen Rose on NBA Restart, Detroits Lions and Favorite Fruit. Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. 🌍🏀🏈SUBSCRIBE NOW ⚾🏒⛰️ http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So I'm not going to lie here, John. I'm a responsible podcaster. You know me. I'm a responsible person. I received a lot of criticism and backlash for a political statement and the apples are trash and that they're overrated. So naturally this morning, I got a few apples. And I bit into a Honeycrisp. I did not get the hype.

I bit into a gala, though, fresh out of the fridge. And I said, okay, we got something here. I'm okay with the gala. Now, the green apple, you called me to get on the pod, you're munching on one of those green apples. I got it right here in my hand. I could take a delicious bite, let people hear it. I mean, just, it's an appealing sound. That's disgusting.

So I've been up here in Montana. I don't know if I ever want to leave. I feel like this every time I come up here, but I got my tree dashers with me from Allbirds. And they were made for this. I thought they were made for Virginia. They're made for Montana, too. They're lightweight, they're tough.

They're made of all natural materials. And Allbirds is the sponsor of the green light pod. So we're batting a thousand there. They look fantastic. Listen, guys, you know, some of these athletic shoes really functional, but they don't look great. I need to be in style at all times, okay?

So I'm thrilled that Allbirds gives me an opportunity to look good. You know, as I've said before, look good, feel good, play good. That's what we said in football. Same thing with shoes. Just walking around as a dad. Allbirds checks all the boxes, functionality, good looks, the whole thing. And I'm thrilled that they are sponsoring the Greenlight Pod. Go check out tree dashers at allbirds.com.

Good looking shoes. Happy Tuesday afternoon, everybody. I'm Chris Long. This is the Green Light Pod. And we are moving to two pods a week. As I mentioned last week, we were coming off the heels of Fourth of July weekend, some travel from me and my family getting out west. And quite frankly, not burn out.

I mean, I could do, we were doing five pods a week at the beginning of the, the the pandemic, but I know you guys probably get tired of hear my voice. I get tired of talking, believe it or not. And to maintain some semblance of sanity in my family life, two young kids, a summertime that I'd like to enjoy, you know, I had to pump the brakes a little bit, two pods a week. I know that it is Tuesday afternoon. Last week we did Wednesday, Friday is the for sure drop for pods.

We're going to aim to do Tuesday, Friday. we are settling into a groove. So I hope that works for you guys. Again, thank you for continuing to listen. Thank you for continuing to propel us to new heights. Where we can do things like rank all the fruits of the fruit kingdom. I mean, this is the hard-hitting stuff that you subscribe for. The main event today is going to be that fruit ranking section,

and there's going to be a couple of familiar names that are going to be popping on. But, you know, my recognizable sports guest is going to be Jalen Rose. tremendous, tremendous TV personality analyst, obviously former NBA, Michigan, Fab Five, all that stuff. But when I hear Jalen talk, I just, you know, I, I'm always impressed with how measured he is and just not sensationalist. It's really hard to get to be as big as a Jalen Rose without kind of selling your soul and being a sensationalist at some turn. And I think he does a pretty good job. And I really enjoy listening to him, him and Jacoby, Jalen and Jacoby on TV, on the radio. They're great pairing. And we'll talk to Jalen about the NBA restart, COVID and the

NBA. But after a while here, I'm going to get tired of talking to guests about COVID in respective sports and the outlooks for their imperfect, but, you know, what seem like probable scenarios that are about to be carried out in baseball, basketball, football. You know, I'm, I'm, definitely going to pick Jaylen's brain about that, but we'll do some fun stuff too. I can only talk about COVID in sports so much. And for these leagues, pretty soon it's going to be time to shit or get off the pot and do this thing safely or don't. The main event, though, fruit ranking.

Here's how it came about. I took to Instagram, and again, I'm off Twitter now. Largely, I use Twitter for only essential tweets and pumping the pod and that sort of thing. But I've joined the Instagram community full time. My IG stories are now my tweets, affecting. So I took to Instagram and I made a declaration about apples. I kind of took apples through the ringer there. And there's nothing wrong with apples per se, but I just think they're overrated and the

wrong apple can taste absolutely disgusting. I was met with a lot of vitriol, a lot of hatred. And I know that some people don't like politics and sports and this is a sports podcast, but I got to get political today and talk about the overrated nature of Apples, namely, bread delicious. And what's the main one that everybody likes that, you know, everybody gets in a lunch bag? Those apples suck. Now, there are a lot of apples.

That's the saving grace. I did get a notable personality or two in my direct messages on Instagram, caping for apples. One was Johnny Hecker, terrific punter, great guy, former teammate with the St. Louis Rams at the time. and he is from the state of Washington. So naturally, he was super hurt, crying on his keyboard as he typed a desperate plea for me to respect the Apple Industrial Complex. Initially, he said, how high are you? If you can pick up a cold, honey crisp apple and say you hate it, I'll get your face tattooed on me. I guess you owe me a tattoo because I don't like the apple.

but we're going to get Johnny Hecker on here to try to, we're going to get him on here to try to convince me otherwise. We'll see if it works. And then after that, as soon as my friends found out that I was talking all things fruit on my Instagram story, you know, there was a big movement to rank all the fruits in the Fruit Kingdom. You know, I'm down to do that. I know it's been done.

We haven't done it on this pod. As soon as my buddies caught wind that we were going to do that in the group chat, I had one guy in particular. Shout out to C Naps. He insisted that I include tomatoes. Now, he is a man of Italian heritage, very proud Italian heritage. And my mother's maiden name is Adonizio. So I've consumed a lot of tomatoes in my lifetime.

I wasn't real keen on including it in the ranking system because you start including tomatoes in the fruit rankings. Where do you stop? There's a bunch of questionable fruits that you could throw in there that are technically fruits, but nobody would agree are really fruits. I mean, peppers, I think. Somebody said are a real fruit. Come on. So I got to get the world-renowned Craig Lou Alir on here. If you haven't heard of Craig, well, you don't know shit about tomatoes.

The first guy I googled, I said, tomato expert, this cat, anybody that wants to know about tomatoes, they call this guy. He lives in North Carolina. He has grown 4,000 different types of tomatoes. Craig's written a 257 page book on tomatoes, only tomatoes. He's grown 4,000 different types. And the book is called Epic Tomatoes. But I DMed him. I shot my shot at Craig Loua Lear, the world authority on tomatoes.

And he hit me back very quickly and said, you know, interestingly enough, I'm a Pat's fan. I spent a year in New England and he remembered me, I guess, and was happy to come on. So we got Craig coming on. Talk about whether we should include tomatoes in the fruit category. Because technically, tomato is a fruit, but maybe Craig thinks otherwise. Also, we'll get a few gardening tips from him. You might want to get your home garden going in the age of COVID. But the main event is going to be the ranking of all the fruits in the fruit kingdom.

That's going to be Jimmy Trana. Jimmy Trana is going to pop on before Jalen pops on. So we've got a star-studded lineup today. But yeah, the whole Apple background before we get Johnny on to try to change my mind is that they're trash. Listen, I have directed a lot of vitriol. at the Apple Industrial Complex in the last 24 hours. And I meant it all. I understand that I heard some people with my comments about apples.

And I have began educating myself. And this is a process that begins today. But as of now, until I learn otherwise, they kind of suck. Now, there's a difference here between, you know, apple the fruit and apple-flavored things. I like apple flavored things. I just think the fruit itself is overrated. And I'm going to take a few minutes to dismantle that complex that I talked about, that we have just so thoughtlessly accepted as part of the American way.

When you think of America's favorite fruits, you think about George Washington, okay? You think about apples. You think about the fall. You think about harvest, you know, all these romantic ideas. but I think about a basket full of bananas and apples at a Hudson News in the St. Louis airport that every traveler from like

Omaha to Hong Kong has been fondling and putting back. I think about a fruit that has the consistency of styrofoam wrapped in brown paper. And I think about the thing that sits in every kid's lunchbox for hours. That's an apple to me.

And I get that that's part of what makes it popular, affordable, available stores well. But there's a darker side to apples. Take Adam and Eve, for example. Not convinced? Snow white. But I mean, seriously, 2020, is it the fault of that apple that Eve munched back in the day? I mean, you could make the argument that all the hardships that we're experiencing right now are the fault of apples. I did some Googling and I think that the, you know, the apple that you that you pick up

at the gross, not the grocery store, a gas station, like the bottom of the barrel apples on a long trip to try to stay healthy or the Hudson News apple is a red delicious. Okay. And when it comes to favorites and top produced in America, according to the site, farm flavor, red delicious is the most produced second favorite. That's a travesty. That apple sucks. Don't tell me I'm missing anything when I say the apples are wildly overrated if you think I haven't had a red delicious. Now evidently, the gala apple is taking the nation by storm and I'm going to eat one pretty soon here as an experiment because I saw there were some in the fridge. People say they're like honey crisp. I don't like those either. I will work on taking in the pro-apple perspectives.

Yeah, too sour largely for me. The insides dissolve quickly. You're left chewing on like a piece of apple paper for 15 seconds looking like a camel. Now the Granny Smiths, I have no idea who eats those. I think probably just serial killers. Like that's who you might as well bite no lemon. Now, apple pie, to be fair, this is the flavoring part of the argument. And when we list, it's going to be about flavoring and the fruit.

apple pie terrific apples sauce terrific hard cider really good you know if you want to switch it up and you're tired of drinking beer every night I know some people have some beer purists are going to be mad in my mentions but apple jacks are terrific I love the martinelli's apple juice in that little bottle that's shaped like an apple chef's kiss those are the reasons apples might sneak into my top 10 the apple flavored stuff apple chips at an airport And by the way, why do you prefer eating a $10 bag of apple chips when you could just get the $1 apple? Because the consistency is better.

And a news apple in a basket next to the magazines feel like people have been repeatedly coughing on it, as I mentioned. And another thing about apples, you just have to wonder if the water, when you rinse it, is doing the trick. I mean, just a quick rinse with water. you're talking to some people that are like total germophobes and I'm one and I've done this I'm guilty with pears and apples but like we literally run it underwater for five seconds and we wash our hands and say the ABCs which I think is the right thing to do or the declaration of independence or whatever the fuck you want to recite while you're washing your hands I'm talking about home boy at the apple farm that like sneezed on the apple or at the grocery store like the dude that took a piss and didn't wash his hands and then fondled all the apples is water just going to get that off for you um I guess that goes for any fruit. In summation, though, it flavors nicely.

I'm not crazy about the fruit. And yes, I've had peanut butter on apples. I love peanut butter on apples. Don't get me wrong. Let's get Johnny on to defend the apple industrial complex here. So this is fun. And I've had some really good football players on the pod. This has got to be one of the best ones.

I know that some people think punters aren't people, but they're very much so people. and I have invited an all pro punter on this show because he took issue. His feelings were hurt with my very righteous rant about apples. Maybe I'm eating the wrong apples, Johnny Hecker. What am I doing wrong? Make your case, buddy. Yeah, you know, I mean, first off, just coming against the fruit in general.

I mean, you can like, you could pick wars with fast food all you want, but you got to let people know that this is a healthy option. And, you know, there's no other, you know, something that grows from the ground that has such a good slogan. You know, there's nothing that claims to keep a doctor away better than an apple. You know, and apples are versatile. You could put them with peanut butter, dip in chocolate, a slice of cheddar cheese, nice sharp cheddar cheese on a sweet apple. I know that's kind of a southern thing, but throw it in a pie, you bob for it at Halloween. You know, it's really time if you make cider. What can't be done with an apple, really? I mean, you could probably

make a jack-o-lantern out of one if you really tried hard. And, you know, I grew up in the state of Washington, as I told you, in our messages when I did get, as you say, pretty heard about that. You know, I grew up around a lot of apples. Applesauce. You tell me you don't like applesauce? No, see, John, now if you did, your typical internet guy, you might be one of the best football players I've ever seen, but you are just a typical internet guy because if you listen to the whole, I take no issue with apple flavored items, okay?

Apple flavored items are ridiculously good. I take issue with the overrated nature of your home state's fruit, the staple. Yeah, I think you're just grossly misguided. I'm not sure if you're eating the right apples. I think you've maybe grown up just eating the green guys, which are usually baking apples. You know, that's not really for just general everyday consumption. And if you're not putting them in the fridge, you're also doing yourself with this service. Now, I'll agree with that.

I mean, I'll agree with that. Yeah, out of the fridge is better. Now, John, I mean, you just said that the apple keeps, there's a saying that apples keep the doctor away. So you're telling me that if you eat apples for the listeners, you don't have to go to the doctor anymore. Yeah, as well they say, an apple a day keeps the doctor away, right? So as far as the right types of apples, what am I missing?

Which apples should I be fighting into? I'm just going to tell you, the greener it is, the less I mess with it. I still mess with apples in general, but I'm a huge fan of the honey crisp apple. A Fuji is really good. A nice gala. A pink lady. Also, great apple. Golden Delicious.

Very good. Man, I save one of those four, but I'm definitely going to steer you towards the honey crisps. That is, that's the official apple of the Hecker household. And I'm going to stick to that. So I'm not going to lie here, John. I mean, like, I'm a responsible podcaster. You know me. I'm a responsible person.

I received a lot of criticism and backlash for a political statement and the apples are trash and that they're overrated. So naturally this morning I got a few apples and I bit into a honey crisp. I did not get the hype. I bit into a gala though, fresh out of the fridge. And I said, okay, we got something here. I'm okay with the gala. Now the green apple, you called me to get on the pod, you're munching on one of those green apples. I got it right here in my hand.

I could take a delicious bite let people hear it. I mean, just it's an appealing sound. That's disgusting. Like green apples are only supposed to be. Decoration apples that they have at like restoration hardware in a bowl or pottery barn. You're not supposed to actually have edible green apples around the house. It's almost like a joke. I mean, consider me not laughing because I don't think it's a joke at all.

I love green apples. Definitely not as much as the other ones, but they're a great baking apple. Almost every apple pie in the world is made from green apples. Granny Smiths are notorious, you know, for being of the kind. But, you know, what can you do, man? You got an apple eat it. Now or blend it up apple sauce is so easy to make literally just throw a apple Maybe cut out the seed throw a whole apple in the blender you got applesauce.

Isn't that easy? So John so basically you're telling me that if I buy enough apples I can I can Dethron Moths and like just make applesauce in in bulk it's that easy absolutely Absolutely I made some for my son like two days ago just that easy through it in the Vitamix how old is your son? Almost two and a half So he can't express that the apples sauce that you made for him tasted like shit, like fully expressed verbally that the applesauce was trash.

Right. He lacks the verbiage to really give me a tongue lashing if it's bad, but he could just always push away, which cuts just as deep. You know how that is. I do know how that is. What are your favorite apple flavored products? Oh, man.

See, I'm not a big fan of the artificial apple flavor. But if I'm going to have, I'm really just going to go to bat for one thing and one thing only. And that is those caramel apple pops. You know what I'm talking about? The greens one, green pops with the caramel around the outside and the green wrappers. Those might be the only apple flavored things that I truly enjoy on a regular basis. Now, I don't eat them all the time, but every time I do eat them, I'm never thinking, oh, this is only somewhat good.

So you don't do apple juice. Like being a Washingtonian and the reborn Ray guy, when you get to the sideline after booming a 90-yard punt, You don't run over and grab a Martinelli's from Tyler Williams, a little apple shape, little apple juice, you know, regain the hydration from the seven calories you just burnt? Right. Yeah, I don't. And, you know, and I think you're kind of drawing a strange conclusion is that apple juice is not, in fact, flavored. It's flavored by something other than apples.

You know, you can't have apple juice. It comes from apples. It's like that and apple sauce. You can't say it's an apple flavored product. It's made of apples. It's just in a different form. You don't call like snow, tomato tomato, snow, ice and water and steam, something else.

It's all water. Yeah, but you know what? They say that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but then if you squeeze an apple into apple juice, they say not to drink too much of that stuff because it's so high in sugar. Yeah, and it'll give you the runs. I don't know anything about that. Give me your top five fruits real quick off the top of your head

because that's what we're doing on the show. Okay. I mean, I'm going to throw in the apple. because that's the hill I'm on. And then I will go strawberry. This is in no particular order. I'm just going to throw out five there. Apple, strawberry, peach, watermelon.

Let's go Blackberry. Oh, my God, you put Blackberry in the top five. Spoiler alert. Blackberry for me. Blackberry for me is not going to even scratch. you know, it's not even going to come close to making my list. Right. I don't think you give a lot of fringe fruits a chance.

I think you're just going for big hitters. You're probably going to say like, oh, banana, you know, pineapple. Well, you'll have to tune into the Greenlight Pod to check it out. And last thing, and you were as a defensive player for a few years with you there, you definitely had the defenses back because you were our best offensive weapon at times. How about the helmet? Because I hear you had the helmet. you got to see this helmet that everybody was talking about.

At first, it looked like a Halo helmet. What's the real story? Right. Yeah, yeah. So I was kind of intrigued. I saw the one on the internet that, you know, every NFL player was bashing, saying there's no way in hell I'm going to wear that. And so I actually was at the facility today.

And I was like, hey, can I see what the mask is they proposed? And he's like, right over there on the helmet. And it's literally just a piece of plastic, you know, really kind of flimsy, not flimsy, but I mean, just pliable plastic that forms around the bottom side of the, bottom side of face mask. So where a normal vision visor stops, that one starts and then it goes down the rest to cover kind of the bottom side of the face mask. And it's just kind of two levels of plastic that are perforated and like alternating patterns. So you can breathe through it pretty easily, but it's also going to stop, you know, particulate and spit hopefully from getting through. But,

you know, I don't think a lot of players who have in their mind kind of made up, they're not going to wear one of these. They're going to pass it up because it's pretty, pretty non-invasive. it's clear you can see through it pretty well. And, you know, I didn't really run any wind sprints or anything, but I don't foresee that being that much of an issue. It's not one of the typical surgical masks everyone's wearing around right now. It's kind of off your face. And we'll see.

We'll see. I mean, I'm really hopeful that the game's going to be back. And, you know, I'd love to get things rolling and see my guys again. I would love it if y'all got it rolling. Lord knows all us washed up players. We need something to watch in the fall. A bet on something. Yeah, lose all your money.

Yeah, well, you said it. Not me. I didn't want to put you in a bad spot. But yeah, Daddy, you've got to make money. Daddy needs a little disposable income. Johnny Hecker, man, always great talking to my old buddy. And I really hope you and the family stay really healthy and get out there on the field soon. And you're going to be the old elder statesman, no Greg Zerline, no bones, just Johnny Hecker's old-ass, boom and punts.

Me and Jake McQuaid, holding it down, baby. There's a few of us, St. Louis Rams left. And I'm going to try and hang around as long as I can. All right, brother. It's great hearing from you and I'll work on the Apple thing. You too, Chris. Give him a try. Okay.

So that was Johnny Hecker who, I mean, I know he's from Washington, but obviously he's not an expert because he would have agreed with me if he was an expert. Let's get a real expert on. And this is the guy that, as I said, I shot my shot. I slid into his DMs. This is the world's leading voice on all things, tomato. And we got to decide whether or not we, we. include tomatoes in this ranking process because technically they are a fruit.

But nobody thinks about it that way. And that would open Pandora's box. I will hear Craig Lou Alir out. By the way, check him out on Instagram. I'll get his handle. He does talk about gardening and all that stuff. And also has some books.

Seems a great guy. Let's see what he has to say. So as I said, guys, the leading voice on all things tomatoes. And I love tomatoes. but when my group text really exploded at the prospect of ranking fruit, the guys back home, I had a few people saying, don't forget tomatoes. So what did I do?

I found the leading voice on tomatoes and I shot him a DM. Craig, do you get a lot of DMs about your tomatoes? I get, so, you know, whether it's Instagram, email, you name it. Yeah, I am the answer man. I am like the world's tomato consultant. I get pictures of bugs, pictures of disease. You wouldn't believe it. So the pressure, the pressure is on all the time, you know.

There is a lot of pressure with being the one voice for one of the most popular fruits or vegetables in the world. So that's the first thing. To me, I always thought vegetable because it's got leaves. I don't know what makes you think about it more as a vegetable, but you had hit me up offline and said there's a little bit of a distinction. So where are you? You're not giving me the political answer. Well, let's not even use the P word these days, man. So, yeah, we'll keep tomatoes unpolitical.

botanically it's a fruit because it comes from something that has a flower that falls off and the little bit at the bottom, the ovary enlarges, and gives you the fruit like an apple. Weirdly, zucchini and cucumbers, using that definition, are also fruit. And so vegetables tend to be roots, leaves, things like that, shoots, you know, think of celery, think of potatoes, think of lettuce, stuff like that. Yeah, but you said culinary, in the culinary circle, it's definitely a vegetable. Yeah, you know, I've been to some tomato dinners with chefs and stuff, and they try so hard to make a dessert out of it. And only one. They've only, so if they were battered, they'd be batting 100, maybe one of 10, you know. How the hell do you make a dessert out of tomato?

Give me the one that hit. Yeah, the one, it was called the Sun Gold Panicata. And there's this really sweet little orange cherry tomato called Sungold, and they took the juice from it and they mixed it with heavy cream and gelatin. And they made this really smooth, delicious dessert. And it really, you'd have to think long and hard to say, yeah, I'd taste some tomato in there, but mostly it just tasted like a really nice cream and fruit. So the failures were things like a tomato toast, a tomato French toast. And even he admitted, he'd come out of the kitchen and go, that was pretty bad, huh? Yeah, that was really pretty bad. And I can only imagine how many

people make their living growing tomatoes. So it's one of those things that like you, I think we get caught in this false sense of security with food security and with like farming that like, you know, you don't realize what a domino effect would be if we didn't have tomatoes. Well, and so there's a couple of interesting things because the fruit is, because the flowers self-pollinate, if we have a bee issue, tomatoes are one of the crops that's not impacted because they actually pollinate themselves. Whereas a bee issue would mean a tough time for cucumbers and melons and things like that. But yeah, I think the other thing is COVID has been an awful thing, but it has created zillions of new gardeners. So one of the things I try to do is

demystify it for them and be there to help them. So if they decide to garden because they've got some time in their hands, I want to turn them into forever gardeners and, you know, just enjoy it and grow tomatoes for the rest of their life. So that's why I'm really happy to play this kind of ambassador or consultant role. I get a kick out of it. Well, you know, it's funny this spring and COVID, like in the bad part of COVID. My wife and I wanted to go start a little garden. Now I'm away from football. I like, you know, these hobbies. And by the way, shout out to Joe Thomas, one of the best tackles in the history of the game. He's got a tremendous, self-proclaimed, tremendous vegetable garden that he's been working on for a couple years. So, you know,

we were like, man, this wouldn't even a safe time back in March to go to the nursery and get the seeds we needed. So we kind of missed the boat this year. So I'll be sure to hit you up next year. But you wrote a book. Yeah. Epic Tomatoes. 257 pages on tomatoes. To a layman, you're like, how do you fill that? But you've grown 4,000? So I've been gardening for 40 years, and I've collected tomatoes from people all over the world. And I just, you know, I kind of get bored with the ordinary.

And if I try something I like, that means I may something like something even better. So I just keep whipping through varieties. I'm not developing varieties. And it is a really interesting niche to have. Today I got to speak on a mixed drink podcast about Bloody Mary's because he was investigating what kind of tomatoes should go into the tomato juice. So I used to be a chemist in pharmaceuticals and I didn't care for it very much. My retirement life is just so fulfilling because I get to play every day and I get to meet

people that I would never have expected to met like our conversation. So it's a real treat. How about of your 4,000 that you've grown? Give me some that are on the obscure end of the spectrum, but accessible to an American that can go grab some from somewhere. So, I mean, Cherokee Purple, I have to mention, because I get to name that tomato. A man sent me seed.

Whoa. Yeah, a man sent me seed, an unnamed tomato that his family got from the Cherokee Indians in the 1880s, and he chose me of everybody in the country to send the seed to. So I read the story and I named it, and I sent it to Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, a seed company right near Charlottesville. Wow. The guy decided to sell it in his cattle, but he said, you know, that is an ugly tomato.

It looks like a leg bruise. It's never going to catch on. But I'll sell it and we'll see what happens. So that's one people should try because it seems to grow well everywhere and it's delicious. No one has tried a tomato that stays green when ripe, but tastes like the best red tomato you've ever eaten. They should try Cherokee Green, which is one that just happened to. in my garden when you're as a mutation. Brandywine is a name that a lot of people who garden know is a great tomato and it is sincerely a wonderful tomato. But, you know, I can, I can shoot people

top 10 lists. I was thinking, I ship plants. So next year, hit me up and we'll send you a nice little selection of things that you can only get from me and you can, you know, however I can help. But that's what I like to do. You know, people need something. I help them out. Do you crossbreed a lot of tomatoes? Yeah, we've, we've been doing a project for 15 years to create rate varieties that only grow four feet tall because we wanted to help out container gardeners. So over 15 years, me and 700 people all of the world have put 120 new varieties in sea catalogs. And it's just, we haven't gotten a penny for it because that's not why we're doing it. We're doing it to make garden fun for people, right?

Yeah. And what's a common mistake? I know that like we get the books, we could check it out. But like for the short attention span, people who listen into podcasts and want to do a garden, what's like one or two common mistakes that people make? Don't underwater. A lot of people are really afraid that if I water my tomato too much, it's not going to taste good or it's going to get waterlogged.

But if it's in good soil or a container, the way that tomatoes get those black spots on the bottom is by stressing the plant. So you get a hot day like today. It's noon. the plant's wilting, the plant gets stressed, and it creates blossom endrott. So keep them watered, keep them happy. And really, to me, live in your garden. Spend a little bit of time every day out there, know what your plants look like when they're happy.

Treat it like a true hobby. It reminds me of a story. Some people bought plants from me once and I said, you know, I get those tomatoes from you and they just didn't do well. You know, I always take this to heart. Oh, I'm so sorry. What happened? Well, we planted it and then we went on a cruise for two months.

And then we came home, we couldn't even find the plants anymore. And I'm like, you can't really plant them and go on a cruise. Yeah, it's like getting a dog sitter or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's not difficult. And it's, you know, if people want to look at my Instagram feed, I'm taking pictures of my garden every single day. And I go live from my garden every Friday for 45 minutes at 3 o'clock just to answer

questions from me. Yes, I'm there, dude. Hey, so what's your Instagram for people listening? Just at NC Tomato Man. NC Tomato Man, I love it. And then also, give me a couple favorite tomato dishes, tomato flavored dishes or dishes that are relatively easily accessible. Yeah, gazpacho and tomato bisque. So one's a hot soup, one's a cold soup.

They're both simple to make and delicious. And then I make this roasted tomato crustata so simple. But it's tomatoes combined with goat cheese, pine nuts, pesto. lemon peel, lots of roasted tomatoes, and it's one of the five best things I've ever eaten my life. And I'm a foodie. I cook a lot. Chemists always cook a lot, can I say. But yeah, and I'm happy to send people recipes if they want to try. I always go for the simplest, the lowest number of ingredients, the simplest preparation, and the biggest bang for the buck with flavor. So my recipes are never complicated. And my wife and I are working on a gardening cookbook that we hope to self-publish

in the next year to share all of the great things that we've discovered in the last 40 years or so. as we've been gardening. I'll give you mine, and I come from a half a time. Yeah. So I do. Tomatoes have been a big part of my diet, but give me fried green tomatoes with pomeo cheese. Man, I know that's not as evolved as the gazpacho, but I love it. And lastly, this is the authoritative question.

Should I not include tomatoes in my rankings of fruit? I think you should, just because at summertime, and you've got like a whole huge audience, people that are probably fretting every night over their tomato plants. I bought a UV flashlight so I could go out at night and find the tomato hornworms munching my plants. Talk about weird, hey. So, yeah, I'd include. All right. Hey, that's a and now I absolutely have to. Do you have a, top three fruits before we let you go that are top three fruits? A really good musk melon, a really perfectly right pair. And I guess I have to say tomato as well. So there you go. Listen, man, I love pears. the hot take assertion that pears over apples and I got crushed for it.

I don't know, no. But an Asian pair? Yeah. I mean, kidding me? Are you kidding me? Complexity. And not too hard. Complexity of flavor.

The perfect. Yeah, yeah. You could write poems about those things, man. They're really good. All right. Thank you so much. Again, you can check them out on Instagram. You can check out his IG lives.

And I hope we meet down the road, man. I'll be hitting up for tips. Thanks so much. I really enjoyed this. You have a great day, Chris. and thanks. You too, Craig. Yeah, let me just say this.

What a nice guy. I mean, like, what a stellar dude, man. I mean, the guy knows how to grow 4,000 tomatoes. You'd think he'd be kind of pompous maybe for being so accomplished in his field. Pretty chill guy. And I enjoyed that. I'd like to get him on again. So give him a follow.

And maybe when he's up in Virginia, I know he lives in North Carolina now, we'll collab on something. I don't know what my half of the collaboration would be, but maybe he'll teach me how to garden. Yeah, I think I just thought of something. So let's get Jimmy on. Let's rank all the fruits in the Fruit Kingdom. Jimmy Trana joins me now.

All right. So as promised, one of my good friends in the media, somebody I think does a great job and has a tremendous podcast themselves. I don't know if I can say it like that, tremendous podcast themselves. So I'm not even sure I have a tremendous podcast. But one of my podcast dads, Jimmy Trana, he's got the Sports Illustrated Media podcast

rolling every week. They go once a week and it is terrific so check him out. Naturally, he jumped into the fray when it came. He's not afraid of controversial subjects. He jumped into fray when it came to my apple slander. Jimmy, how you doing? When you had asked me to try to rank the fruits,

I was a little apprehensive because I do feel like you get into like all this bullshit about like is tomato or fruit. And, you know, I have a list, but I don't know, you know, there's a lot of, like, do you consider peaches and nectarines the same thing? Let's set the rules. Orange and tangerine. Yeah, let's set the rules.

I think that peaches and nectarines can kind of be in the same classification. I put oranges and Clementine's the same classification. Okay. But I think, and this kind of goes counter to the advice from the world's leading tomato expert who wrote a 257 page book on tomatoes. He's grown over 4,000 types. he was the nicest dude wait until you listen to this podcast I wanted to have him on for now we're going to have a beer at some point and he's going to like grow a tomato in my yard

I was going to say make you a little tomato salad maybe a little material yeah dude he's the man but he so like he told me we should include tomatoes as a fruit because it's the summer now what I'm going to do is not do that because I think it would set the internet on fire right two more issues on technicalities now I didn't know this because I'm stupid, but in doing a little research, lemon is a fruit. Now, you don't eat a lemon, but you do use a lemon in a lot of ways. So that could throw the list off. So here's the key, and this is how I made my list. And, you know, I think that flavoring in foods, like the influence of these

foods, like, for instance, if you put orange on your list, you take into account, you know, that there are a ton of orange flavored foods that you might like. You know, that's the way, I kind of thought about it. Now, when it comes to lemons, you know, I just, spoiler alert, it's not top 10 for me, but I should say that I'm a big lemon fan. What if you love lemonade? Listen, you could certainly put lemons in the top 10 and never eat lemons. I would hope nobody eats lemons.

Listen to this earlier today. So I'm Googling. Do people eat lemons? Now, wait, let me say, if you put that on Twitter, someone will respond with you. You can grill them on the barbecue and they're really good. Yeah, it's just, or yeah, I don't know, man. Like, it's, or all citric fruits matter. You know, like, of course, of course I found myself like

YouTubeing and gawking at a woman eating an entire lemon today and being nervous that one of my family members would kind of walk in and judge me like this was some weird genre of porn. I saw people saying in the comments that you can salt lemons. Yeah, and I really do think that lemons mostly from a. standpoint of like the fruit itself. Most people's experience with lemons are at Ruby Tuesdays and they're probably going to get you sick because that's supposedly the dirtiest thing in the restaurant.

Yes, yes. That is the one, the lemon on the glass. And then this is the last one. So everyone knows, especially in the summer, cherries, very popular fruit. Yes. You go in there. But now what about the jarred maraschino cherries? Do you consider that a fruit?

Fuck, yeah. Okay, so here's what you do. you put them under the general umbrella of cherries. Okay. They're not their own fruit, marasino cherries, but it's like I'm not putting Bartlett pairs in one spot, an Asian pairs and another pairs are pairs.

All right. Well, then if that's the case, number 10, I had the plum. Not a huge fan, but if you get a good one, they're pretty good. I respect the hell out of plums. And in fact, there was a long conversation about it making the list or not.

I don't want to give you. And I always think of Ashley Schaefer from Eastbound and Down. If you've ever seen the outtakes. Have you ever watched the outtakes? I have not. No. That's the first thing you need to do, Jim, is go and Google Eastbound and Down outtakes with Ashley Schaefer. And he's talking very graphically about plums. It's, but funds are terrific. Yeah. And they serve a function, too, if you have some issues. Number nine, raspberries. As you'll see as the list progresses.

any red fruit I'm big on, as I mentioned with the cherries. So I got raspberries at number nine. Raspberry jelly. I'm not a huge, like, chocolate dessert guy, but like a raspberry crumb type of thing is always good or like a lins or tart. So that's why I got raspberries. I respect that, man. Raspberrys are steady to me.

I mean, they're, uh, they're, you'd be hard for us, press to find anybody who hates raspberries. And I would be curious if somebody, like, loved, loved raspberries. Right. That's why I start a number. Nine. Number eight, I have the banana. You know, I'm not like, I guess one of the things during Corona, everyone was making banana bread. I didn't do that. But, you know, banana serves its purpose. Very healthy.

Yeah, I don't know about that though, Jim. We got to talk about the banana for a minute. No, no, I'm saying if you need a little energy boost, it's a good fruit to have. 25% sugar, highly acidic. You were around in the 70s, were you not? I was a kid. I mean, I've been barely around. Okay, but do you remember, and I found this out today, there were recipes for all types of things, banana in the 70s, like there was this big wave. There were recipes for banana meatloaf.

Oh. Hornflakes with instant banana. Well, I do know that people who try to eat like gluten-free or no carb, they use banana to make pancakes. Like mashed banana is a way to make pancakes. Yeah, no thanks. Yeah. But I found this one, try this one on for size since banana.

This is the sign of effect. I know all the diet tricks. I don't implement them, but I know them all. What are they? One day, I use a banana instead of flour to make pancakes. Well, don't do this. This is what I found out they did back in the 70s. They used ham and hollandaise sauce on a banana.

And I saw a picture from one of these old cookbooks. And I thought to myself, like, as a dad, one of the first wage. you measure your commitment is, hey, would I jump into a pit of snakes to save my kids' life? Would I fight a grizzly bear? Like, obviously, would I eat hot bananas covered in ham and doused in hollandays? Probably not. I don't know. You might be on your own, Whalen.

Whalen's got no chance if that's what that has to do. Yeah, I don't know. The holiday sauce is, I mean, if you could just, can you maybe scrape off the sauce and then maybe, you know, maybe Whalen can live? Waylon. Number seven, I got blueberries. Okay. Huge blueberry pancake, blueberry waffle fan right here. Love blueberries.

Number, what am I, six, I guess? So I had peach and nectarine as five and six on the list because I didn't know if they'd be the same family. I like the nectarine better than the peach. I like the smooth skin as opposed to that fuzzy skin. Don't ask me why I don't have an answer. Listen, it's a texture thing. It's one of the hardest things. in the world of eating.

It really is. Number four, orange. And I'm a big fan of fresh squeezed orange juice, except it costs like $9 for about four ounces. So that's a problem. But you get fresh-squee orange juice, you'll never drink tropicana bullshit again. Never, never. It rips a hole in your chest, that tropicana stuff. Number three, pineapple.

Okay. This is good. In the summer, they're a pain in the ass to cut. So it's hard to rank them higher than that Like if you buy a whole pineapple from the supermarket It's like an hour of your life Trying to like get that thing into the cube So spend the extra couple of bucks by a cut up already

Number Well that would be number three Well I have to change it that would be number four Number three would be strawberries Like I said red fruit You get a fresh strawberry It's And strawberry

You're gonna be mad at me Jim. Strawberry is a not on your list. I can't say that for sure, but. Number two, watermelon, which I had number one until the Marasino charity was allowed.

Then that became number one. So, but watermelon, I mean, I mean, I eat watermelon probably every single day in the summer. No seeds. So good.

It's so good. It's so, and you get that really ripe one, that good one, that sweet one, man. Holy God. It's just. Yeah.

And then the Marasino cherry is such a power move. I mean, clearly not a real thing, but it's like saying your favorite animal is a liger. Listen, admit it. When you have a drink that has that cherry in it. Oh, I eat it. You savor that, right? You savor that with the little. Yeah.

When I was a kid and I'd get Maraschino cherries in my drink, I would just ask for extras and extras and extras before I knew that they were like toxic. But when I was a kid, I thought that. a fruit. Shirley Temples. I mean, come on. The whole cherry family there. Now, so I don't, so I didn't have apples because I agreed with your original take.

That's how this whole thing started. And I didn't have pears, which I know you're a fan of and you'll probably have pretty high. I like bears. I just couldn't squeeze them into the top 10. Oh, that's fair. Yeah, I didn't know what to do at lemons. I do want to honorable mention a few things, dragon fruit.

I think that is, it's not that accessible. But if you ever pay like way too much to grab some chopped up dragon fruit at, at foods of all nations. That's a local place. Shout of the foods of all nations. Sponsor? Yeah, maybe in the future. Investors could be you.

But yeah, I think when it comes to dragon fruit, my introduction was Gatorade when they tried that. I don't think they still have it. But it's really delicious. Plums, I definitely want to put as an honorable mention. They almost made my top 10. Raspberrys were right outside there. you know, all respect to the raspberries, very steady.

Avocados, which are technically a fruit, right? Yeah, yeah. I can't put them on there because, listen, although I don't mind eating, I'll eat an avocado with a spoon in the morning and salt. Like, I did that every breakfast in my career last few years, and they really are good to get the healthy fats. And I never, like, look forward to munching an avocado. So, and they don't have a lot of, like,

now you'd ask Tom Brady, he'd say otherwise, like avocado flavored stuff. I'm not really that. And then lemons, obviously. Shout out to lemons. So 10 for me is going to be pineapple. Okay. Some people would say that's low.

I would say it's not out of spite or disrespect. It's just a little bit acidic for me. Is that it? Like it's a little bit tangy. Yeah, yeah. And to your point, you have as good a chance of like butchering your index finger with a really sharp knife as you do enjoying a pineapple sliced up.

So pay the extra money, get a pineapple. Terrific fruit, deserves their respect, not high for me. Nine, I have apple. Now, I know that for some people, they're going to be shocked and made a list, but my point about apples were more that they're overrated. Most people might have apples as, you know, top three fruit. And make no mistake about it in the open of this pod, I absolutely took a huge dump on apples.

But then I had Johnny Hecker on. And in the process of recording this pod today, I had a gala apple, and that was just fine. Now, the reason that apples worked for me, as I outlined in the open, a lot of apple-flavored things I really like. I really do like. Ice cream with apple pie, you know, one of God's greatest creation. I don't like apple pie. That's why apples did make my list. I'm not an apple guy.

I don't like apple pie. I don't like, not an apple. Like when you would mention it on IG, what I had sent to you on the DM was that like the thing about apples is for me, they're not good and they're not bad. They're just there. Yeah, they're just there. I'll eat them when I'm trying to be on a health kick.

And if I'm not trying to be on a health kick, I'd probably never eat an apple in my life. Listen, if apple was just the fruit and they couldn't contrive flavor from it in various products, it wouldn't even be on the list, okay? The fact that it's healthy, truly, and I really can't find it. love to find a reason that it's not. I can find some fringe, you know, some fringe

well, they spray the skin with the toxins. Yeah, you're right. That's why it's so low. Fuck apples. But not apple pie. And if you have a chance, maybe what you've been doing wrong is not mixing it with vanilla ice cream. I'd rather just have the vanilla ice cream. Dude, I'm telling

you, give it a chance. It's all about working together. Give me the vanilla ice cream and the pie crust and just think up the apples. Dude, listen, that'll work too. Okay. Okay, so at eight oranges for me. Terrific fruit, again, the same vein as pineapple.

It's just not something I'm going to eat all day, okay? Here's a theory I have. The looser that peel is, and I don't know if you call it a peel if it's not peeled yet. Do you call it a peel? Skin. Orange. Rined. Rind.

So is it, does it only become a peel once it's peeled? Yes, I think it's called Rind, R-I-N-D. Well, the more room you have in there, the more of an air pocket you have between the actual orange and the rind, the better it's going to be the less like just intensely acidic and like just burn your mouth a little bit. I love oranges. We used to eat them on the tree at halftime, like every young football player out there damaging their brains, eating oranges at half time. That'll do it. We used to love them. And I don't see a lot of people, though, as adults, just crushing oranges with regularity.

I do sometimes. I'll throw Clementines in the mix. Rock solid. Staple for eons, steady, respected. And to your point, orange juice, though, if you're drinking Tropicana or one of these Minutemades or something, you might as well have an orange soda, which is terrific. Right, right. The sugar content, it's up there.

Now, I know there's some other bad stuff in soda and that sort of thing. Oranges are on this list. just for one reason, though, for me. Orange cream sickles. One of the best things known to man. Phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal call by you, Chris. That's, yes, absolutely. And give me one of those.

If you put coconut cream in there, it's like healthier. Like, you get those at Whole Foods. It's kind of guilt-free and you love it. Also, you can, like, the range of an orange, orange chicken, orange skittles, orange Oreos around Halloween. Not mad at that. You should have ended it with the orange cream sick. No, I'm just

Jim, I'm just more illustrating the versatility of this fruit, including saltwater taffy, which you probably like. Yeah. Not a taphy. Not a big taffy guy.

I'm trying to think it's like an orange, you know, oh, orange starburst. It's always good. Yeah, that's good. Pink's the better starburst, though. Without a doubt, not even an issue.

By the way, when it comes to Mike and I, I don't know how this just popped in my head. Literally. what I used to do on the plane was pick out all the green and yellow Mike and Ikes, all of them, and then replace other Mike and Ike boxes and, like, tape them down.

Because they would just get passed around on 10 plates to wherever. Mike and I. Here's one thing, though, you mentioned about the orange juice and the, so I will say this. Like, I don't know, maybe, like, once a year, I'll have an orange soda, and it just hits so right. Like, you can't drink that all the time. But, like, sometimes if you get, like, a slice, maybe, like a slice of pizza, you get that phanta that sun case oh yeah now my man um from st louis shout out to coach is what they

called him he was a guy who came to all st louis rams practices in earth city missouri which is quite the feat it's 120 degrees we're two and 14 every year without fail coach as he called himself would show up and he'd have orange crushes for all the d-line after every practice i never forget your heroes i have not forgotten coach um the the man at at rams practices. So we're at... Separate pod could be ranking crush, Fanta, and Sunkiss. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's got its own, it's its own rabbit hole. Now seven, and this could be higher, because I have the utmost respect for cherries, but cherries coming at seven for me.

If I had known Maraschino cherries were in the mix, maybe I put it higher. Threw me right off? Uh-huh. You threw me right off that they were allowed on the list. Well, listen, cherries, one of the necessary evils of cherries are the, pits okay that can be a little bit unsightly annoying to eat in bulk but reneers if you've ever had a reneer cherry they're lighter in color kind of like yellowish red like kind of like apple colored a little bit um and they are delicious they have them a lot up here in montana that's where i'm right now by the way jim um and antioxidants uh and there's cherry cola cherry coke for me is one of the most delicious things on God's Green Earth and they're way superior to any other fruit-flavored cola.

Not into the fruit-favored colas really, except for Arndt, but I will say, I can take you right now to my freezer and in there I have one dessert and one dessert only. Cherry, Italian ice is. And here's the thing about those. You have to get Marinos, the yellow and green. Don't give me this Luigi's bullshit or knockoff brands. It's got to be Marinos, sherry Italian ice. So it's, it's six here. I've got pears, okay? And I know I made some people upset when I said pears over apples. It's not just the flavor. It's the consistency. That's not a crazy take. Yeah. No. They also, pairs also saved Rick Ross's life. Shout out to Pear as Rick Ross popularized the saying. And this wasn't always, you know, I used to have pairs a little bit higher. I

I think I've come down to Earth a little bit more, but I really like a nice, juicy pair. There's a difference between a few of them, trying to think Bartlett are a little bit softer, I want to say. Yeah? I can't say I'm a pear expert. I do like pairs. Don't eat them that often. And when I do, I think it's just a regular pair. So I'm not, I can't really break it all down when it comes to pairs.

Yeah, but they're delicious. And Asian pairs are my favorite, though. If you get a nice cold Asian pear out of the fridge, they're so crisp yet do not hurt your teeth. Like my little one-year-old son could take a bite of an Asian pair. Somehow you bite into one and it just melts. So pears six, fringe top five fruit. And there's nothing wrong with being fringe top five, okay? I put French French top five.

You know, some people say that's slander. Some people would say it's too high. Rankin fruit is like ranking. quarterbacks. It's really controversial. I respect a number six fruit. There are so many fruits. Five, mango. Mango for me might be higher, if not for the fact that it is just a sugar bomb. I could eat mango all day. Shout out to mango water ice, Rita's. And then Chloe's mango popsicles, if you get a chance, go to the grocery store, presumably a health food store or something bougie and get these

Cloys because you know anything that's got like a woman's name as the brand name with like a whimsical font is like gonna be priced a little higher presumably healthier. Chloe's 13 grams of sugar but these popsicles are delicious

these are wonderful popsicles. Yeah. I think I think Trita Joe's has like a raspberry mango or something mango ice pop that's really good too. Oh they're so Good. If you freeze a mango, anything mango flavoring with mango really translates well. And so I got mango at five at four. I've got a real staple here.

This is not only a fruit that I think is delicious, but it's very utilitarian. That's the blueberry. When it comes to blueberries, Driscolls are the best brand. You want to get them fat, juicy. I don't know if they're pumping them full of steroids, if they're Mark McGuire blueberries. but I prefer the PED blueberries. I don't care what it's doing in my health. The only downside with blueberries, and it's surprising it's so high is, blueberry does not cross over the flavor well.

How many, there's no blueberry juice. I'm not interested in blueberry pie. Blueberries are great in smoothies, though. Yes, they're great for health foods, but if you want to pig out, blueberry muffins are it. And pancakes. Yeah, pancakes, if you're into that.

I have a 10-year-old niece. She loves blueberry icees. I have to say that. Blueberry ice? Yeah, then her tongue is blowing. She thinks it's the stuff. Your boys will get into a blueberry ice every now.

Okay. Blueberry ice, that sounds like anything that ends in ice, I think alcohol, I think like butt ice. And eventually my boys will probably get into butt ice. So if they're still making that in 15 years. Okay, so number three for me,

peach. And this is the peach, nectarine family. listen, there's nothing better than a juicy peach. I had somebody DM me describing how they like the peach to run down their chin and onto their arms. And I thought that was a hilarious. Listen, this wasn't always a case for me. I used to make this stand and I had a really bad take.

We all make mistakes in the media. And I had a take on Twitter some time ago where I said, pears over peaches guys. And I got obliterated for it. I love peaches. My kids have actually, I can credit my kids with getting me back into them. They're great.

And nectarines deserve the love too. But I was YouTubeing peaches and nectarines today. You didn't realize there's so many YouTubes on fruits. A renowned peach expert said, one of the biggest mistakes people make is they put their peaches and their nectarines in the fridge before they're fully ripe. And that freezes the process. So don't do that.

Number two, this is my shock to world pick. And this is one that's very personal to me. Okay. I try to guess it. Yeah. Kiwi. No, those hairy little fuckers.

I got no interest in those. Anything you have to constantly... I thought you... Anything you have to constantly mix with a strawberry or something, it's a system fruit. Like, we did system bans recently. Shout out to Dave Damashag, who second mentioned in this pod. There's a fruit of the year every year, so we should have had him on. But he's just so dominant in the fruit space that he would have just brushed us.

I feel like people... Remember there was a curb episode where Larry David was like, people just say they love Hamilton because that's, like, I feel like that's like people just want to say kiwi because they don't want to say strawberry or orange or candle. So they throw out kiwi. Yeah, but kiwi. I mean, like, come on. Yeah. So you're eating like a, like, it's got the skin of a warthog. It's just disgusting to me.

And then it's just not that, it's not that flavor. I'm looking at, I'm looking at those little black seeds. I agree. Come on. Yeah. Okay, number two for me in coconut. Nobody sits in munches of coconut, but I would. And I know it doesn't taste like the inside doesn't taste like a filling of an almond joy,

but the enhancement level from fruit to flavor with coconut is massive. And whether it's coconut chips, coconut, you know, water, a good coconut water, Not like the viticoco in the paper carton. It's bad. It tastes sweaty. I want the pulp in my coconut water. I want it to taste like a coconut. And when I was a kid and my dad used to go to the Pro Bowl,

I used to go out there and just run around with Virgin Pinacoladas at the pool. That's great. That's great. It has never changed for me. I love those things. I will go on vacation, like a nice vacation with my lovely wife, Meg. and I will literally go do cardio for an hour so I can slam five pina coladas until I go into like diabetic shock and they're virgin peanut coladas. I'm not even trying to get drunk.

Even if they say dessert and I'll get a virgin pinocalada. Why virgin? Because I don't like having one drink. Oh, okay. I got to. If I'm getting drunk, I'll have a peanut or I'll just drink alcohol. But they're delicious, man. Coconut cake, coconut icing, coconut shrimp.

coconut shrimp, coconut popsicles. Are you kidding me? Coconut sorbet is like crack. I'm with you on every single thing you said. And I would also say this. If I go get, you know, in the summer you get soft ice cream. I don't know. We have Carvel here is huge in New York.

I don't think it's all over the country. But I get toasted coconut as the topping on that. Frozen yogurt, toasted coconut. Oh, are you kidding me? I, so good. Yeah. I'm with you. I got, yeah.

You know what? I want to rectify something. My mom was cutting a papaya earlier. But papaya, coconut, or papaya and the same color. Easy to mix up, both middle tier fruits. Another besmirchment of cantaloupe. All right. So number one, the crown.

And I was told by my production team here that this was controversial. Before you reveal number one, you have not mentioned strawberry. I have not mentioned strawberry. If that year or two in New England, Tom influenced you. I don't know what happened there, but no strawberries on the top 10 is in the space. Tom not like strawberries. Well, that's like one of the big things with TB12 is no strawberries. Remember he, because it's part of the nightshade bullshit with no peppers and no something else.

That's like tomatoes, right? Yeah, yeah. And remember there was something on Twitter where he said if something happens, he'd eat a strawberry or something and then it didn't happen. I've got what it was if you could Google it. But Tom has, Tom has, Tom claims. he's never had a strawberry. I respect strawberries, but if your entry point onto the list for me is based entirely upon being able to be a jelly, you're not going to make it for me because I eat peanut butter

and honey. Oh, so what about strawberry ice cream, strawberry shake? Strawberry shortcake, strawberry dafferies. Okay, like only one thing there made. I actually passed up some strawberry ice cream last night, bro. So it's just not moving me. It's a fruit that I respect, but is overrated. All right.

Number one. Number one. Watermelon, for me. How about the fact that we had the same number one? It's great. It's great. It's great minds here. We came together on this.

It's the most, to me, it's from a strictly fruit standpoint, if there were no flavorings, I mean, this would run away with it for me. It's versatile. I enjoy a strawberry in the, or not a strawberry, a watermelon in the dead of winter. Now, here's a key question about watermelon. What is the majority of the time you eat it? What's the Chris Long method? Do you hold it by the skin and chomped down?

You cut it up. The way I used to eat watermelon, I used to eat it by the pound in college, is I cut it in half, grab a spoon, and then just go to work. Now, wait a second. Wait, you just open the door to more questions now. So like how are you putting the, is it in a bowl? Is it in your lap? Is it the juices are just running all over?

I mean, that can be sloppy. I would probably eat it outside on the porch. I would go to town. But, you know, I definitely ate it inside too. You just cut in half caveman style. Stick a spoon in there and go to town. And I love everything about a watermelon. I love like right on the edge, like where it kind of turns white.

I love that too. Me too. And I don't want my watermelon too. too mushy. I want it kind of firm. Not too sweet, not too juicy, but just like, just watery enough. And another great thing about watermelon is you go to a nice hotel or a nice gym. They got all those fruits in like one of those nice water jugs that, you know, the fruit just kind of marinerates in there.

And then your water tastes like watermelon. So my wife hates this, but she'll go in the fridge and find a solo cup with like three watermelon cubes and a glass of water. and it's just like that that's my attempt at the nice hotel lobby in my own home. That's the good thing about watermelon is you can cut it up and leave it in the fridge and it will last you. Whereas like strawberries after like one or two days there's mold on them. The bananas go brown and, you know, all that. Watermelon, they're tough.

They stay in that fridge pretty good. It's also it's also touted as a panacea in rural Virginia. When I was a youth baseball player, a lot of guys I play with were country dudes. And I would go to my friend's house in Green County. And I remember I had the flu one time. And instead of, like, putting me on any medication, they told me you eat one of these Green County watermelons. You'll feel better tomorrow. And we'll go.

I never knew that about watermelon. Wow. I didn't either. And it worked. I felt better than next day. Maybe it was my immune system was just on steroids back in the day. When you go to a hotel, wherever you go, you get the fruit cup, the fruit salad, whatever you call it. There's got to be watermelon, blueberries.

I need some kennelope in there. I don't need the garbage honeydew. Throwing a couple of strawberries and a couple of pineapples. We need to ban the honeydew from the fruit salad. I'm not on board with that. I am supporting honeydew. Now, something I'm ready to ban, okay?

By the way, my wife dropped a jewel on me this morning talking about this. She said, all the pea fruits, if you get the bowels moving, that's what the pediatrician says, plums, pears, peaches, that whole thing. and I was like, that's pretty impressive. I didn't know. Peaches did that. Well, I guess she maybe threw that in there.

Yeah, yeah. A little bit liberal. Plums, I knew. Yeah. Yeah, and prunes, obviously. Now, cranberries are disgusting to me. Cranberries are only for passing a drug test. That's it.

I can remember when I was in Foxborough, you mentioned, did Tom convert you with strawberries? When I was in Foxborough, they have a bunch of these cranberry bogs there that you go to see. And it's like a point of pride because ocean sprays up there. And there's nothing wrong with cranberry juice. It's just for passing drug tests. But cranberry bogs are not that exciting.

I don't like cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving. When that thing comes out of the can, it looks like a jello dog food. And I am not interested in putting that shit on my food. All right. So like the sports media columnist in me now has to come out. I have to ask you, when you say the cranberry juice would help feed a drug test. Are you talking about like PED drug test or weed drug test? I would think I've never tried to beat a PED drug test because I have never put anything in these, these majestic muscles that you see on Sundays.

But I did smoke a lot of marijuana. And honestly, for me, I was never a pushing envelope guy. Like, I'd stop like three weeks before I'd get tested, which for some people sounds like pushing the envelope, but I sweat a lot. I work out hard. Like, I know like guys work out hard not to be a hardo, but I was like a workout. addict. So I would sweat a lot. And it usually like your metabolism dictates that like you can wait a little longer. So if you're an o-lime in, maybe not moving as much, you want to stop like a month and a half before. But some guys would really push the envelope and they'd be chugging like

gallons of cranberry juice. So it would be, so it would be smoke the weed, then do the cranberry juice, get it all out of your system, then take the test and you'd be fine. Yeah, supposedly Cranberry juice is supposed to get like, you know, toxins. All the toxins. Whatever, but the juice, no pun intended, is not worth the squeeze for me. Also, blackberries

for me, just get them out of here. Here's a fruit we didn't discuss. Grapes. Yeah, perfectly respectable, but half of them are green. See, I prefer green to purple grapes. The thing with the grapes is they better not have one

seed in them. There's one seed. I'm out. No seeds. That's probably the biggest negative about any fruit, the seeds. No seeds. Get them out. I do want to say one more thing about bananas before we get out here. When I was a kid and there was obviously banana Nesquick, they also had strawberry as well. Yeah. Banana was my favorite. I used to wonder how they milked the bananas. Like literally, I was like, this is astounding. Like, how do they get the milk out of these? Here's what I would say to bring this back to something you said earlier. I wouldn't have any family members walking on you,

YouTubeing videos have had a milk of banana. That's as bad as be watching people eating lemons. No, this would be what? Milking of a banana would be worse, I think. Yeah, I never thought of it that way as a kid. So you were what? 13 to 14. Yeah, I was, yeah.

Maybe younger. So, yeah, so that's our list. Anybody who's got a problem with it, take the Instagram, but don't take to Twitter, because I'm not going to hear you. We've got Jalen coming up. Jimmy Trana, one of the best. Check out his podcast. It's so good that Sports Illustrated calls it the Sports Illustrated media podcast with Jimmy

Trana. I mean, this is the flagship guy here, guys. I love his pod. Again, he's one of my podcast ads. I appreciate you coming on. Anytime you're the best hanging there and and go honey, dude. Listen, we've got to share a watermelon when Corona's over.

For sure, dude. For sure. Sit there with it on our laps and just, you know. Get an IG live of that. Give me an IG live of you eating water. That's what you should do when you post this pot. You should announce the pot while you eat. I got a ripe watermelon sitting in the kitchen right now.

I've been ironing up all day. I'm going to get on IG live later tonight and pump this thing. I'm going to go eat a cherry time. buying ice right now go get it all right buddy all right