Things You Must Know About

Number one on the list: Tomatoes

Here's the scoop: I went to the FDA site, and here's what I got from it: It appears that only three types of tomatoes are involved: Roma, Round Red and Red Plum, and only tomatoes NOT grown in the states listed at the bottom.

Since we live in California, tomatoes grown locally OF ALL TYPES are ok. Roma, Round Red and Red Plums are even ok if they are grown in California or one of the states listed. Whole Foods has pulled all of the tomatoes of these three types from their produce bins, but are still selling cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, heirlooms and tomatoes on the vine. These are all ok.

It appears you shouldn't eat any of these tomato varieties from Mexico, as it is not on the "safe" list. That's the one I think would be most likely to appear in the stores, since it's tomato season here, and it's almost over down there. It would have been a lot easier if they had just listed the states or countries to avoid, but maybe that's a longer list.

What often happens in cases like these (such as last year's spinach problem) is that they are conventionally farmed by a single company or group, or packed and processed at a central location which is contaminated. Sometimes they are treated in the field with a contaminated waste product as fertilizer (because if it's not organic, you can use sewage sludge or uncomposted manure as fertilizer-- nice, huh?) Since everything is brought from different places, once it's packed, even if they know where the produce started, they can't tell where the contamination originated, so they have to issue a blanket warning like this. I checked this with my local organic farming cooperative. The FDA doesn't list an official scientifically approved cause of the contamination.

In this case, locally-grown, organic produce purchased directly from the farmer or farmer's market is the best bet (as it usually is), as it is packed at the source, delivered within a short time of picking, and not fertilized by waste or processed in a contaminated facility. As Whole Foods mentioned, heirloom and other varieties of tomatoes are not affected.

****SO RELAX AND HAVE A BLT****

SAFE STATES/COUNTRIES LIST
If you live in one of these states and are buying locally grown tomatoes, you are OK.
* Alabama
* Arkansas
* California
* Georgia
* Hawaii
* Louisiana
* Maine
* Maryland
* Minnesota
* Mississippi
* New York
* Nebraska
* North Carolina
* Ohio
* Pennsylvania
* South Carolina
* Tennessee
* Texas
* West Virginia
* Belgium
* Canada
* Dominican Republic
* Guatemala
* Israel
* Netherlands
* Puerto Rico

Number two: Reef Safe Sunscreen
Sunscreen: so important there's a song about it. Here's something I bet you didn't know: the active ingredients in some sunscreens stay active when they wash off of your body into the sea. When they land on coral reefs, the sunscreens block the beneficial rays of sun which keep bad bugs on the coral at bay, and encourage viruses which eventually bleach and kill the reef. I originally read about this in the Denver Post, here, and at Environmental Health Perspectives.

I went through all of our sunscreens just before we left for vacation, because we love to spend time in the water in Hawai'i, and sure enough, every single one, even the fancy health food store types, had at least one of the four ingredients which cause the damage. The ingredients are: parabens, cinnamates, benzophenones and camphor derivatives. Here are some of the names you'll see on the bottles: Oxybenzone, benzophenone-3, octyl-methoxycinnamate. But look out for parabens and the camphor derivatives, too.

Yes, there is a sunscreen, made by Caribbean Sol, which does not contain these ingredients. It is the only one I could find, and I ended up buying it in Hawai'i, though you can of course buy it online and it should be appearing in more health food stores this summer.

The sunscreens it uses are reflective: titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. They include lots of other natural stuff-- you can go to their website to learn more if you want. From a user's perspective, the only drawbacks are that 1) it makes your skin look a little bit lighter when it gets wet, so if you're trying to show off a tan, just give it up for the day, and 2) we found we needed to be a little bit more generous with it, because it's not as oily, and it's a little bit stickier than regular sunscreen. Reflective sun-BLOCKS with zinc and titanium dioxides actually reflect the UV-A rays that make your skin AGE, as opposed to just the UV-Bs that we're all so afraid of, and that are dealt with by sunSCREENS. So that's a bonus.

We bought the kids' version and the regular version, and I think the kids smells a little bit fruitier and fresher, which I like in the summer. What we ended up doing was wearing regular sunscreen on the days we didn't go to the beach or snorkel, and using Caribbean Sol when we did (with showers in between). And as dorky as it seems (again, if you're a tan-hunter) I always wear a rash guard on top to avoid having to use as much sunscreen. If you can go super-dork and wear a long-sleeved rashguard and leggings you should, and you're a better person than I am. But I felt like I was doing my part, because I do love the little fishies in the sea. If you are concerned about toxic products in your cosmetics, you can always go to skindeep and check it out. (Burt's Bees makes one that uses titanium dioxide and is paraben and phthalate free, but it smells like midnight at a Greatful Dead concert. Ok, maybe not that bad. It smells like patchouli and sandalwood. Very much. So if you like that, it's great.)