This is a lovely thing to see on a container of chopped tomatoes:
No preservatives, no sodium, no junk. And even better (ok, just as good) as what’s not in the tomatoes is what’s not in the packaging: BPA, or Bisphenol-A, the toxic plastic chemical that lines the cans of that vast majority of canned goods sold in the US (the Eden Organic brand of canned beans, lentils etc. being the only exception I know of) and on every can of canned tomatoes sold here. If you read much about food or food politics these days, you can’t avoid coming across discussion of BPA, especially recently when the FDA declined to take steps to ban the substance in the U.S. (unlike most other developed countries, including Canada, Denmark, Sweden, France and the entire European Union, Turkey, Malaysia,even flippin’ China for gosh sakes). The FDA says there is no conclusive proof that it’s harmful, and that’s just how we roll here in the US – something has to be proven harmful to be disallowed, rather than proven safe to be allowed – thank you, lobbyists! Europe and the rest of the world mostly do the latter. But we make a lot more money producing food here, so that automatically makes it safer 😉
At any rate, canned tomatoes are something I use quite often in cooking for clients and at home, and “conclusive proof” aside, I wanted to be able to avoid BPA when I felt like it (and felt like paying for it – Eden Organic beans routinely cost double or more what other organic non-BPA-free beans do). Happily I discovered the Pomi brand of tomatoes that comes in a box instead of a can, and doesn’t use BPA.
Pomi tomatoes come chopped or pureed, and contain nothing but tomatoes. They have a fresh, sweet taste and are a great addition to many recipes. Note that you may want to adjust the salt in recipes where you use them, especially if you’re used to using canned tomatoes that have added salt (which most do, unless you buy a no-added-salt variety.)
Happy cooking!