October 8, 2015
Local veggies are thousands of miles
fresher. I read this in a brochure that was promoting eating local. This
statement got me to thinking about a recent study about comparing organic
veggies to traditional culture veggies. I can’t remember who sponsored the
study but it did seem suspect to me. Their finding was that there is no difference.
HUH?
They did not disclose who supplied
the veggies for the study. If I had to guess it was industrial traditional and
industrial organic. Even with refrigeration, Nutrition begins its decline from
the day of harvest. This loss continues
all the way to its final destination. These veggies may be many days if not
weeks from harvest. Shipping veggies from California to the East Coast and the
veggies are only days from harvest are logistically impossible.
What I would have liked to have seen
is a study comparing local veggies (organic and traditional culture) to
industrial veggies (organic and traditional culture).
I think that local veggies produced
by any means are a lot more tasty, nutritious, and healthy than anything that
is shipped in on a semi-truck. The time from harvest to consumer is at most
only a few days. Most likely these veggies will have been handled more gently.
Also most likely the grower knows his customers.
Of course I do not have data to back
up this opinion, but there is always the taste test. This test is very easy.
Have a friend purchase the same veggies from both of these sources, local and
from away. It may be also worth the trouble to have a blind fold on. Sometimes
visual can bias your opinion. Smell can too but we won’t go that far. Then as
you go through the samples say what you think the veggie source is. My money is
on that the local veggies winning the taste test.
One of the big problems with shipped
in veggies is that they are bred for shipping and taste is secondary.
A book about the Florida winter
tomato harvest made this point clear. The author starts off the book about
driving down a rural road in Florida following behind a farm truck that is
loaded with something green clean up to its gunwales. I might add both were traveling
in excess of 50 MPH when one of the green things falls out and bounces down the
road past the author. Curiosity got the better of the author so he stopped to
see what it was. Close observation revealed (as the tomato industry calls them)
a green ripe? (My question mark) tomato and undamaged!!!. The tomatoes are
harvested “green ripe” so that they can be packaged and shipped to their
destination where they are then exposed to ethaline gas to give the appearance
of being red ripe. One has to be suspect of taste and nutritional value.
Local veggies are 1000’s of miles
fresher!!
Questions? I can be
contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more
garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com
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