I just spent two weeks in tropical Cairns, Australia, a few of those days were out in the sun, snorkeling, fishing, bush walking. So I decided to test what I figured was a myth of meat making you proof against sunburn. I skipped sunscreen.

A light tan is supposed to be about SPF4 (Sun protection factor 4, stay in the sun 4x as long without burning, sunscreen is usually above SPF50) and my face, arms and legs had a little tan left over from summer. My back, chest, stomach, and shoulders were northern European white.

Two hours snorkeling was enough to get my shoulders burned enough to peel, my back got lightly burned. I guess I didn't point my stomach at the sun much. That's less burning than last time I spent a couple of hours in the sun with my shirt off, so I think there was some protection.

My friend I was traveling with told me that my face was bright red, I could see the red in my arms, but that all just turned to tan.

Last time I got burned enough to peel, it hurt. This time, it just itched as it peeled and felt very hot if I pointed that part of me at the sun for a couple of days.

While fishing I had my arms in the sun, with the un-tanned inside of my right arm getting hours of sunlight. That reddened, but didn't burn enough to peel. and now more of the inside of my right arm is tanned.

My thoughts:

• You burn about as quickly
• It hurts a lot less
• You can get a bit more sun without it peeling
• Once you get tanned you really don't get burned anymore
• If you tan and you spend time outside you'll tan as soon as the sun gets above 50 degrees above the horizon. For me that's early Spring for minutes a day through to mid summer where it's hours a day.
• You can get through a mid-summer day's UV with a deep tan.

To lots of people with episodes outside, or doing outside sport as the low sun of early spring turns into the high sun of summer, so solar UV dose slowly rises over months it would seem like immunity, getting tanned before burning enough to peel.

But if you go from nothing to hours under the summer sun meat won't be enough to protect whichever part of you is most pointed at the sun, but it will make the damage less severe and heal quicker, since unnecessary swelling will be suppressed.