You read it right. It was way back in 1834 that a doctor named John Cooke Bennet added tomatoes to ketchup and claimed that his concoction had medicinal properties that his diseases such as diarrhea, indigestion and rheumatism. Following this, tomato sauce and related products were sold as a form of medication.
We’ve all eaten ketchup, and know that’s clearly all nonsense, but until 1850, people were flocking to ketchup to cure their ills.
The reason this scam eventually ended was because imitators started making their own bootleg ketchup medicine, making even crazier claims, saying it’d cure scurvy and mended bones, and people eventually started calling bullshit.
Tomatoes do carry antioxidants and vitamin C, but don’t expect to chug a bottle of ketchup and feel like a million bucks after.
Picture Credit : Google
