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Seriously though. This is an
important issue to bring to your attention. No
sniggering ok? Let's talk about how curved your cucumber is.
If you follow the overseas agricultural websites, you'll see
some discussion about curved cucumbers and misshapen fruit.
Did you know there was a cucumber quality standard? It
ensures that
cucumbers don't bend more than 10mm for every 10cm of length
or they cannot be labeled as Class One vegetables?
The European Agriculture Commission is trying to simplify 36
regulations that control aberrant items like curved
cucumbers which, they believe, they could bring it down to 10
basic standards that say it can't be, most importantly,
dirty, diseased and rotten
The report on
FlexNews quotes EC spokesman Michael Mann: "People are
saying that prices are too high, [so] it makes no sense to
be chucking food away. We want to have two classes, allowing
supermarkets to sell funny shaped vegetables." He's right.
When you consider that natural variation (at least in my
garden) will happen even when you plant varieties that have
been selected to be uniform. Retailers justify this as
catering for our desire for perfectly symmetrical
vegetables. It's what sells.
Think about your own prejudices. How curved a cucumber would
you buy? How bumpy can your apple be? How about being able
to buy varieties that have real taste and aren't grown just
to fit mathematically in a packing case? What about produce
that uses fewer chemicals but with an occasional blotchy
patch? How about if it was cheaper?
Fred Harden 21 June2008
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