My first blog, the dangers of canned tomatoes, lets rehash

I live on a beautiful mountain in Tennessee. Just as I come down to the end of it, I am surrounded by tomato fields. What started this blog was a question. Why are they picking the tomatoes when they are green? Do not vine ripened ones taste better? Well a little research found that they do not ship well when ripe. SO they are picked and packed while green, shipped to their destination, placed in an ethylene gas chamber and ripened. That gas is deadly, if a man was in the chamber during the process, he would die. And all that is soaked up into your tomato products, sold in cans. To make it worse, many are packed in white lined(BPA) cans, which is also deadly. This is the tip of the iceberg, if you could see what happens in these fields, you would never touch a canned tomato again. In the early spring, the ground is mounded and plastic raised runs are installed, holes poked into them and the tomatoes planted. There is an irrigation system from the Pigeon river into those raised runs that keeps them watered. They are sprayed with bug killer, big tanker trucks go through and spray, likely weed killer too. After they are picked, the ripe tomatoes still on the vines, they are sprayed with a poison so potent they die in one day. Plants are now all brown and dry. Signs are posted to the effect that if you pick and eat these, they will kill you. Then all that poison is turned back into the ground, the basis for next years planting. Its known now that growing in this way causes cancer, Alzheimer's, allergies, arthritis and on and on. If you know this, why would you continue buying them? There are canned ones that are organic, please look for them and save yourself much pain and illness. Any tomato product is the same, sauce, paste, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, catsup, scary indeed. I am giving you two links so you can check this out for yourself, but just putting the words in your search engine will bring up many pages of warnings and information. Try these: http://abcnews.go.com/health/w/parenting for the BPA article, and http:// voices.yahoo.com/howdangerousisethylene for the gas . I am glad we grow most of our own tomatoes, and other produce now. I picked my first round of yellow beans yesterday, son brought me beets this morning. Been out and watered early, the only time of day it's cool right now. We have hit the heat and humidity already, but the produce loves it and is doing well. Lunch most days is a salad of fresh garden greens, garlic etc. With home made dressing. We could use a good rain, but the humidity is helping keep the ground a little moister than it would be with no humidity Made some hair spray this week, not as strong as store bought but much safer and it does hold. If your hair is on the darker side, use an orange, lighter, a lemon. Mine is grey so chose the lemon. Wedge it and place in a pan with 2 cups of distilled water, reduce by half, strain, cool, add 3 T vodka and 8 drops essential lavender oil. I think I will add more vodka next time as that seems to be the part that does the "holding". maybe an extra tablespoon. It holds for 3 or 4 hours which is not bad. I think the lavender oil could be changed too, if you have a favorite scent, like rose, lemon whatever else, it would work. Have you heard of oil pulling? Very simple and a boon to your health. Use sesame or olive oil, put a good spoonful in your mouth and swish for about 20 minutes while you exercise, wash dishes or whatever grabs ya. Then spit the oil out in the trash, not down your drain, and rinse with clear cold water. I am still reading up on all the benefits of this process, but it helps keeps you teeth whiter and healthier and other things too, will try and update this more as we go. Need to get out and do some weeding before it gets hot, hope you have a great week, take care, stay well.