THIS past Christmas a friend decided against buying his friends and family gifts. Instead, he went to his local Oxfam shop and made donations in their names. You know the kind of stuff: a goat for an African community, clean water and chooks for another.
It's all noble stuff and not for a minute would I suggest otherwise (although letting the world know through his Facebook site was a tad self-righteous). 
Now, this guy has a well-paid job and is a socially conscious kind of chap, but the pantry of his inner-suburban home is packed with tins of Italian tomatoes.
Around the corner from his home a "gourmet" deli also has shelves full of the stuff. The cafe next door even uses the empty tins - with stickers still on - as pots for flowers.
Many of those same people see tinned Italian tomatoes as somehow more exotic or cultured than using an Australian-grown tin. It's like they're cooler or superior to the others.
Over the years we've all been shamed out of buying tuna that isn't dolphin-friendly, or products with palm oil because they help kill orang-utans in Borneo.
Some people even avoid coffee shops because of their gay marriage stance. And each to their own, I say. It's all a matter of personal choice.
But perhaps we need to know a bit more about what we're eating and the way it finds its way into our homes and trendy cafes.
The Italian canned tomato industry is dodgy as all get-out. It's corrupt. It's lawless and it's outrageous.
Late last year an Ethical Trading Initiative report found that migrant workers who pick and pack Italian tomatoes are paid 40 per cent below the minimum wage and have to pay "gangmasters" a cut. It showed the workers were paid as little as three euros an hour for a 10-12-hour day to work on products.
Other reports from human rights groups have blown the lid off practices akin to slavery in the sector, with mafia groups threatening and exploiting many North African immigrants "working" for them.
Anyone who has kept half an eye on the Italian industry wouldn't be surprised by that. It's one of many damning investigations into what goes on.
A few years back an English supermarket discovered the "Italian" tomatoes it was selling in its home-brand cans were, in fact, Chinese.
Two years ago hundreds of drums of canned tomatoes were seized in southern Italy by police, after the product was found to have unclear labels determining traceability and origin.
Inspectors found tomato product drums that were in the process of being painted, while the product was still inside. The drums were also found to have multiple labels of origin, making it virtually impossible to determine where the product came from. Another 80 drums did not bear any labels at all.
In 2011 an Italian television presenter, Alessandro Di Pietro, infuriated government ministers by telling her viewers to boycott one of Italy's most famous varieties of tomatoes, claiming the mafia had taken over the trade and pushed up prices.
ORGANISED crime, people trafficking and exploitation. That's not to mention the mafia-controlled dumping of toxic waste near the fields where tomatoes are grown.
It must be said it's not the entire industry. Popular brand Mutti is one of the few that prides itself on not hiring seasonal workers.
Unfortunately, mainly because of their cheaper prices and the misguided view they're somehow "culturally superior", Italian canned tomatoes have a major foothold in the Australian market.
So much so there's only a handful of northern Victorian growers left supplying SPC Ardmona - Australia's great last fruit and tomato processor.
Most of them are third- or fourth-generation farmers whose forebears left Europe during or in the wake of World War II.
The consumer's preference for buying imported cans nearly put the famous company under two years ago, but it has since undergone an renaissance - mainly through driving home its locally sourced produce and tugging on heartstrings.
Supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths followed suit, pledging to source Australian-grown tomatoes for their generic-brand tins.
Despite knocking back a request for $25 million in early 2014, the Federal Government has subtly also put in place a suite of policies giving the company a leg up.
The Government's Anti-Dumping Commission found 103 of 105 Italian brands on sale were "illegally dumped", meaning they're sold at a price below what they're worth. That's helped by the European Union's endless subsidies for their farmers.
While we joke about Australian farmers' penchant for a hand-out, the truth remains our farmers received the second-lowest amount of subsidies of any developed country.
Next week the Anti-Dumping Commission will rule on whether Feger and La Doria - two of the biggest players in the industry - are dumping on the Australian market.
While often shamed into buying fair trade coffee or ethical chocolate, perhaps when you're next boycotting a laundry detergent company because its director once drowned a puppy, think instead about your tomatoes.
If your can afford the extra dollar or two, vote with your wallet. And if you want to be smug, why not giftwrap a tin of Ardmona tomatoes next Christmas?
Rob Harris is Herald Sun national politics reporter rob.harris@news.com.au@rharris334