Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Makes ya wonder

A Random Thought That Entered My Busy Brain Today:

Does anyone else have the sneaking suspicion that grocery stores simply label bruised, "imperfect" fruit as organic?

Then, they can sell the stuff at higher prices instead of pitching it.

It would be a brilliant, if deceptive, marketing ploy.

6 comments:

SzélsőFa said...

Well, coming from the organic point of view, I sort of dislike this question.
Yet, I can NOT rule out the chances of such unfair actions.
People want to sell, some want to sell at the cost of their own soul. Those do label imperfect products as organic.

My points:

1. Organic produce are not necessarily have to be bruised and deformed.

2. Conventional production also yields tonnes of malformed endpieces - like an apple with a worm's hole in it.
Those are thrown away and/or fed to animals and/or going to processing (think about of apple juice)

The Quoibler said...

Szelsofa:

I agree -- the question was just meant as tongue-in-cheek because in the United States, I think a lot of people have been led to believe that organic produce must be "imperfect" in some way.

Also, there are plenty of people who just want to jump on the "organic" bandwagon to make money, not to actually get organic produce in the hands of consumers.

Angelique

SzélsőFa said...

The situation is similar here.
Most people think organic products can not look right, and some think they can sell any deformed produce as organic to the half-conscious consumer.

But this is just a cheap trick by liers in the business.

The hands of convetional and gmo production reach further than that.

Aine said...

Ha! I never thought that, but you have a point. The organic produce section often looks a bit worse for the wear. I'm not quite sure why.

And, for the record, I am a supporter of organic food production!

Ello - Ellen Oh said...

Ha! I have thought that many times! But you know I think that may be true at the regular grocery store but the fruit and vegetables at my local Whole Foods always looks incredibly good. And they are so much more expensive!

Mary Witzl said...

Organic fruit DOES look generally worse than than the non-organic stuff, so theoretically someone could try this, I guess.

I always remember Snow White and the beautiful poison apple that the wicked witch gave her. I'm not saying that all perfect-looking fruit is toxic, but I grew up near orchards and used to watch them spraying fruit, or administering systemic pesticides -- they use a LOT. There are pesticides so toxic that just brushing them on your skin can kill you. I'll go with the wormholes any time and just hope for the best...