Watch the Empire of Red Gold

[snoozy]

On Amazon Prime, there is a documentary about the international tomato biz called "Empire of Red Gold". It's about an hour long, and tells about how the vast majority of tomato products in the world, like paste or sauce or ketchup, salsa etc, are made with mass produced tomatoes from three places: California, China and Italy.

Some are adulterated with additives such as soy and colorant, but it doesn't make it onto the label. So that is very bad news for people who are allergic to soy.

Moreover, this mass tomato paste market is made with genetically modified tomatoes, tomatoes with a skin so tough, you can drop them on the ground and they don't smash or even split.

Also, the wages of the tomato workers in China are slave wages. The poorest Han Chinese are bussed in to Xinjiang Province where Uighurs are being locked up by the millions. In California, however, everything is machine picked and processed, so very few jobs in that industry.

Anyway, it is an hour's education that you will be glad you gained, and you will appreciate a clean, honest, home grown tomato even more.

[susannah]

Thank you! I'll check it out!

[solargeek]

Cannot wait to watch this. It’ll have to wait until Thursday when we have time but thank you so much for letting me know!

[Maura]

I saw it on Amazon about a week ago. I had no idea. I think the labeling problem is not in the U.S, although there is a movement to have certain additives left off the label.

I am going to be planting more tomatoes next year so I can simply not use canned anymore.

[susannah]

I watched it yesterday. To say it was an eye-opener would be an understatement. Thank you for posting about this; it was very much worth watching!