Product Review: Tom's Toothpaste for Kids: rated "B-"

In our efforts to avoid artificial colors, flavors, and other unwanted additives, we recently purchased some Tom's toothpaste. Back in my crunchy vegetarian grad school days I'd used Tom's and liked it, other than the somewhat chalky texture. I bought the kid version at my local grocery store and asked my kids to give a review.

Kid 1: "this stuff smells and tastes like a strawberry banana smoothie! Yum!"

Kid 2: "this stuff smells. and it tastes awful!"

In a world where even toothpaste for kids comes with sparkles, stars, and cool shapes, Tom's "silly strawberry" flavored natural toothpaste, which is a regular white paste (kinda like what I used in the days before Aquafresh's fun stripes), is really rather bland looking. But it has a sweet fruity scent and cute, if unexciting, packaging. Its real selling point is written on the label: "This product does not contain saccharin, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, colors, or flavors; or animal ingredients." Since food dyes, especially red ones, have been shown to have harmful effects, Tom's seems like a more healthful choice.

Thankfully, the child who declared it "yuck" didn't refuse to use it--she simply prefers her old red Colgate with stars. Go figure.