I am reusing a statement made by Jason Sweeney as my title for this post. Those three words have sent my mind in a hundred different directions thinking about what impact the human pursuit of perfection has on this planet. Most of it isn’t good, some of it is involves plastic.
The concept was still rattling around in my head when I went to the kitchen this morning to make the kids some French toast with cooked fruit topping. The apples that I bought on Friday are not perfect. They look like the apples that I used to scrounge from abandoned homesteads in Canada. They taste delicious.
Consumers in the developed world supposedly want perfect apples. The customer is always right, and those customers get pesticides, genetic engineering and lots of protective packaging.
Photo credit: Brett L
I never understood why they package apples and other fruit in plastic. Its bad enough I still use plastic bags at times! I can half understand delicate berries in plastic containers, but apples?? What stores are these?
Martin, thanks for pointing out another ridiculously stupid use/abuse of plastic. I’ve seen these bubble compartments frequently, but never really ‘noticed’ them.
By the way, when I shop for fruits I usually take the blemished pieces. They taste the same, and I figure that fewer picky consumers have picked them up and squeezed them.
My grandpa and I took my boys apple foraging a few weeks ago and those where by far the best apples I had ever tasted.
When I was a kid, I found a spindly apple tree growing amid the native softwoods on my dad’s woodland. The apples had amazing tranparent but rose dusted skin and powerful flavour. A road widening project in the late 80s resulted in it’s being bulldozed
A few months back, at our local farmers market, there were apples being sold that had a bunch of little “dings” in them. The farmer had a sign that read “These are not worm holes – they were made by hail.” The imperfections didn’t stop us from buying them but it did make us think about the need for “perfection” in the fresh fruit industry. — Thanks for the article.