Do white strands in the flesh of ripe tomatoes mean "Something weird is happening with American food"? No, that's not true: those are sprouting seeds. Gardening and farming experts at the University of Connecticut say the tomatoes are still perfectly safe to eat. Called "Vivipary", the internal sprouting happens in certain varieties of tomatoes, peppers, apple, pears, and some citrus.
The warning that something is wrong with American food appeared in a May 9, 2025 post on X.com (archived here) where the video got more than a million views on the @BGatesIsaPsycho account under the title "Something weird is happening with American food."
This is what the post looked like on X at the time this fact check was written:
(Source: X.com screenshot by Lead Stories.)
The US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Extension Service at the University of Connecticut has described the phenomenon in one of the publications it prepares for home gardeners and farmers: "Seeds Sprouting Inside a Tomato" (archived here):
Have you ever cut into a tomato and found white squiggly looking things inside? These are not worms or aliens that made their way to the center, but rather seeds of the fruit that have begun germinating.
It is called Vivipary, Latin for Live Birth. It is the term for plants that begin growing while still inside or attached to the mother plant. It is common in certain varieties of tomatoes, peppers, apple, pears, and some citrus
... Vivipary happens when the hormone controlling the seed dormancy is exhausted or runs out, letting the seed grow in the moist environment inside the fruit ... The tomatoes off of the plant are entirely edible and quite possibly delicious.
The photo with the Extension Service circular is almost exactly the same as what is shown in the x post:
(Source: publications.extension.uconn.edu screenshot by Lead Stories.)
Readers looking for more Lead Stories fact checks about tomatoes can start here.
