[NAFEX] Why organic produce is sometimes smaller
mIEKAL aND
qazingulaza at gmail.com
Wed Jun 17 10:24:30 EDT 2009
Here's the Environmental Working Group's list of pesticide use ratings
on fruits & vegetables (for large-scale production).
http://www.foodnews.org/fulllist.php
Which would you prefer right now, one of those gigantic strawberries
from California available in every big box grocery, or a locally grown
strawberry picked at the height of ripeness?
~mIEKAL
On Jun 17, 2009, at 9:14 AM, Brungardt, Sam wrote:
> Melissa, my guess is that the plant hormone that was discussed in
> class was GA, or giberellic acid. -- Sam Brungardt, St. Paul, Minn.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nafex-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:nafex-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
> ] On Behalf Of Melissa Kacalanos
> Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 9:12 AM
> To: North American Fruit Explorers
> Subject: [NAFEX] Why organic produce is sometimes smaller
>
> About organic produce being smaller: I had a plant physiology text
> that had a little aside about a commercial use of one of the plant
> hormones it was discussing. This hormone, when sprayed on grapes,
> doubled yield! Wow, what a great thing, right? (Sorry, I don't
> remember the name of the hormone.) But the textbook also said that
> this wasn't useful for raisin production, as it didn't increase dry
> weight, just total weight. It was only used for fresh grapes.
>
> Reading between the lines, this hormone just makes grapes bloat up
> with water. When you buy a pound of conventional grapes, half your
> money is buying half a pound of water. Putting my education to use,
> the next time I went shopping, I bought some small, expensive,
> organic grapes. What a revelation! I realized that these were real
> grapes, and all the conventionally-grown grapes I'd eaten before
> were really diluted. I think they were just Red Flame Seedless, not
> a particularly flavorful variety, and they weren't local, so
> freshness wasn't the difference. The difference was that they were
> organic. That small, expensive organic produce can be a better deal
> after all.
>
> I don't know how this relates to current conventional grape-growing
> standards, but I haven't noticed conventional grapes getting any
> more flavorful. I also don't know how it relates to current legal
> organic standards, since I can see an argument that a plant hormone
> is "natural" but I certainly hope organic growers can't legally
> water down their produce like this. Maybe the general policy of
> watering down produce is why consumers are losing interest in eating
> it.
>
> Melissa
> when I go to a farm market around here and compare organic to other
> stands, the offerings are relatively poor and expensive in general,
> especially when it comes to fruit.
> ...the organic produce grown here costs literally twice as much.
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