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Yet Another Reason to Avoid Out-of-Season Tomatoes

by · February 25th, 2009
Featured, Food Justice, Fruit, On The Web, Seasonality

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So there I was at the Berkeley Bowl this morning, which is how my work day starts. As a personal chef, the first thing I do is go grocery shopping. But I digress. I had gotten there a little later than usual, and had longer lines to contend with. So I picked up some reading material for the wait.

I’m not a regular reader of Gourmet Magazine; but a look at its web site shows that it regularly covers food politics. What I found was this shocking article about how out-of-season tomatoes get to our stores, and then to our plates. Most of said tomatoes are grown in Florida, and are picked not only by migrant workers, but often by slave laborers. Yes, I kid you not, people who are enslaved by their “owners,” sometimes for measly pay, sometimes not, living in deplorable conditions, forced to work long hours picking tomatoes.

Whole Foods has signed a pledge not to carry such tomatoes, but it is the only grocery chain to do so thus far.

Unfortunately, things in Mexico aren’t any better; they are worse. So use the canned for your sauces, or just wait until summer.

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10 Responses to “Yet Another Reason to Avoid Out-of-Season Tomatoes”

  1. Judith Says:
    February 25th, 2009 at 7:25 pm

    I’m hoping this August to purchase a bunch of paste tomatoes at my local farmer’s market and do a massive amount of canning and drying- so I can feel like I’m not contributing to this degradation of our fellow human beings.

  2. Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster Says:
    February 25th, 2009 at 8:33 pm

    The New Yorker did a major piece on this in 2003. It’s sad and disturbing to hear that things have not gotten any better.

    http://www.newyorker.com/archi....._fact_bowe

  3. Lois The Shmethicist Says:
    February 25th, 2009 at 9:41 pm

    Canned tomatoes are not a good alternative, unless they are in Bisphenol-A-free cans. BPA-lined cans leach BPA into foods, and because of their acidity, tomatoes and tomato products have higher contamination levels.

    Eating seasonally really is the best solution, in terms of environmental footprint and, at least in this case, ethical treatment of labor.

  4. Maya Says:
    February 26th, 2009 at 11:10 am

    Wow… that’s horrible. And the tomatoes taste terrible.

    Move to Israel! You literally can’t get most out-of-season veggies in our local yarkans, which carry mostly local produce because it’s cheaper. (Plus we aren’t on particularly good terms with our neighbors.) Plus, our growing season is year round. Fruit and veggies in Israel are incredibly inexpensive. I just bought tomatoes for 0.88 SHEKELS a KILOGRAM, which comes out to about… let’s see… 11 cents a pound? (Checking my math: one kilo=about 2 lbs, so that’s 0.44 a lb… and and 0.44 in shekels = about 0.11 in dollars. Wow.)

    Scratch that, our Israeli produce probably comes from ill-paid (Arab) labor, too. But at least it tastes better!

    Maya

  5. Ilana Says:
    February 26th, 2009 at 5:31 pm

    For the Shmethicist, how about glass jarred tomatoes? I know Eden foods says that do not use BPA in their canned beans … not sure of their tomatoes.

    Is this practice universal? I buy organic tomatoes (and try not to buy off-season, but winter is a bit too dead around here … we need to eat something!). Who knew we needed fair trade certification for homegrown products!

    Ilana

  6. Alix Says:
    February 26th, 2009 at 5:41 pm

    Rachel, I am an avid New Yorker reader, but don’t remember that article, thanks for making note of it! Lois, thanks for your post, I am a frequent buyer of Muir Glen organic canned tomatoes, and until you wrote, I was unaware of them using the BPA-lined cans. Oy. And Maya, nothing personal, but for the first time in eight years, I have hope for our country (the U.S.) It is a glorious feeling. Meanwhile, over the last two decades, my hopes for Israel have been going in the exact opposite direction, and recently tanked between the Gaza offensive and Bibi back in power, not to mention Lieberman getting so many votes. I don’t care how good the tomatoes are, I can’t even bring myself to visit now, and I owe my relatives a visit.

  7. patti Says:
    February 27th, 2009 at 2:46 pm

    i received an email today from small planet foods, in response to a query, that confirms muir glen’s can linings do have BPA.

  8. Judith Says:
    March 1st, 2009 at 5:29 am

    Small Planet Foods (which makes Muir Glen) is a subsidiary by General Mills. To see which multinational corporations owns what in the organic food industry go to: https://www.msu.edu/~howardp/organicindustry.html. Only way to know if a food was ethically grown is to grow it yourself or get to know a local farmer.

  9. Avigail Hurvitz-Prinz Says:
    March 6th, 2009 at 1:14 pm

    Here’s another resource for learning about tomatoes and farmworkers:

    http://www.wnyc.org/flashplaye.....ream/fm939

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