[voytec]

> It's been sitting for eight months at room temperature in a plastic bag, I think we can pretty safely assume it was in bad shape.

At some point there were no bacteria which could decompose big fallen trees. More and more fallen trees increased pressure on the ones beneath and some time later we've got coal and diamonds.

Tomato in a clean-ish room in a space lab may have deteriorated the same way that McDonald's burgers do in a kitchen environment full of nasty bacteria and mold spores - not much.