Food Facts and the Horror of Fire-roasted tomatoes

Ok maybe the title is just a tad dramatic, but hear me out. Tonight, for dinner, I was in the mood for something Mexican-y. I was thinking enchiladas, but after having 2 slices of pizza for lunch--so much for being conscientious, huh?--I decided to roll with the chicken tortilla soup, since it's always a favorite of mine. This recipe called for fire-roasted tomatoes. Now, I'm not really a fan of canned vegetables, but tomatoes couldn't be so bad, could they?

My local grocery store was having a "can-can" sale, and most canned items were crazy cheap! So I'm thinking, "perfect, I'll buy the things for the soup, and save money in the process, yaayyy!". I Googled one of the canned tomato brands that was on sale, and found this splendiferous (I still can't believe that's a real word. I thought I made it up) website called Foodfacts.com . What this wonderful site does is rate groceries by their ingredients, nutritional content, and it also highlights ingredients if they are controversial. Also, if you click on any ingredient listed under a certain item, foodfacts.com will give you the information on it!

Herein lies the horror.

No. Brand. Of. Fire. Roasted. Tomatoes. Received. An. "A". Rating. Shocking, right? Neither did any chicken stock/broth brands. That, to me, is disheartening that we can't get an A rating on foods we all trust so easily. One of the ingredients found in several of the brands of fire-roasted tomatoes was called "calcium chloride". Sounds harmless, right? While it may be safe for human consumption, let's hear what my new friend Foodfacts.com says about calcium chloride.

"The anhydrous compound is commonly used as a drying agent, absorbing water until it dissolves into a liquid. This characteristic makes it effective in settling road dust. When spread in the form of a powder or flakes, it absorbs more than its own weight of water, forming a liquid that keeps the road wet. It also is used as a food preservative, treating aquarium water, and for de-icing roads."

Um...What? De-icing roads? Canned tomatoes? Nah, bro. I'm good on that. This has brought me to a whole 'nother level of awareness of how crappy the food industry really is. So I made my own fire-roasted tomatoes. Sans the road de-icer. Super easy. Here's how.

I bought 3 pints of grape tomatoes because they were on sale, but any tomatoes will do. I used two pints to make 16 oz of fire-roasted tomatoes. 

Pay no attention to the fact that only 1 1/4 pints of tomatoes are here. Use 2 pints. 

1. Slice tomatoes in half lengthwise and squeeze all the seeds out. (I later poured the seeds into my composting bin.)

2. Turn on broiler. 

3. Place tomatoes cut side down on cooking apparatus. If you're using large tomatoes, you can use the broiler rack. I don't have a broiler rack, because my oven is ridiculously old. I think it was used to make the meal at The Last Supper, but I digress. I just used a baking sheet/cookie sheet to place the tomatoes on, and made sure the oven rack was at least 9 inches away from the broiler flame.

4. Leave in the oven for 5-7 minutes, until skin is nice and roasted, and tomatoes are soft.

5. Let cool, remove from pan. Place on cutting board and roughly chop.

6. Add salt if desired.

Dassit!

And this was DELICIOUS! The only downside is you that these tomatoes can't defrost your car's windows.

I'll take this as a lesson to continue to make as much of my own food as possible, and continue to eliminate prepared foods from my diet unless they are "clean". It doesn't feel good to know that we put this kind of stuff in our bodies unknowingly. Lesson. Learned.