I had always trusted my Sunday routine: same store, same basket, same quiet comfort in knowing my family’s meals were planned. That’s why the sight of those tomatoes shook me so deeply. Their skin, once smooth and bright, was now scattered with strange, deliberate-looking marks, as if something had written on them in a secret code. For a moment, fear drowned out common sense.

Only later did I learn the truth: these were traces of insect activity, tiny worms that had bitten into the flesh while the tomatoes were still growing. Not poison. Not rot. Just nature, imperfect and unapologetic. The tomatoes were still safe to eat after cutting away the damaged parts. What began as panic turned into a quiet realization: perfection in our food is mostly an illusion, and sometimes the “flaws” are simply proof that something was once alive, growing under an open sky.