Organic

11/02/2008 by paul.

Been having some serious thoughts about Organic.  Now and again, I buy organic veg. in the supermarket…. if it is going cheap ….. but do not really make a habit of it…but with the exception of tomatoes. A few years ago we visited the south eastern coast of Spain, as part of our search for a suitable holiday home. As the plane descended over the Sierra Nevada and into Almeria airport, the view out of the window was impressive, to say the least. The sun was reflecting of a mass of lakes and the whole area looked very picturesque…..until just before touch down, when we realised that the lakes were, in fact, massive areas of polythene. In reality, closer inspection revealed virtually that every bit of level ground (excluding runway) was covered with cities of polythene. The ground itself, seemed stony and dry, but inside the polythene cities, vast plantations of vegetables existed, with an emphasis on tomatoes. I subsequently understood that the tomatoes existed on a cocktail of fertiliser and pesticide. In addition, very few local Spaniards worked within the polythene cities and that the main source of labour wasNorth Africa…after all, goodness knows what effect prolonged exposure to the enhanced atmosphere in the cities might have and the locals were no fools.

With immediate effect, I resolved to move to organic tomatoes. A bit naive really, since it is clear that most other vegetables in the supermarket also come from Spain and no doubt, are being “grown” under similar conditions. So I really should be moving to organic for all of my vegetables.  My real problem is….that I don’t trust anybody, especially government advisory bodies.  History clearly demonstrates that today’s wisdom is tomorrow’s ridicule……

I read the other week, in the Sunday Times, a review of a book about the history of food additives. I meant to buy the book, but have now lost that copy of the Sunday Times and cannot remember the name of the book. Probably just as well, really.  But, whilst following some links in Wikipedia, the other day, I can across an entry on “Smartfresh” a “brand of synthetic produce quality enhancer based upon 1-methylcyclopropene” (what ever that is). Amongst other things, it is used as a gas to prolong storage life of fruit and is “perfectly safe”. Hmmm! like smoking was, not that many years ago, or the miracle development of hydrogenated vegetable oil,  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat ]   used for a similar purpose.       

Posted in daily stuff, Having a moan | No Comments »