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Why eat organic apples?
Bad Press for Apple Scab - Faulty Human Logic
by Harry Burton,
Apple Luscious Organic Orchard,
Salt Spring Island "Hey
mister, mister, don't use that DDT.
Give me the spots on my apples,
But leave me the birds and the bees, please." |
Harry
and Debbie of
Apple
Luscious Organic Orchard
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Fellow Canadian, Joni Mitchell sang that in Big Yellow Taxi in the 60's. She was a
visionary. Very few of us followed her wisdom.
Next to the Y2K disaster, the next most significant human folly is the North American
obsession with looks over content, which has given us the following afflictions:
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An overwhelming concentration on human beauty
over personal
human qualities.
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A worldwide consumer race to always have faster,
bigger,
nicer items in our life.
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A food source tainted with manmade agricultural chemicals.
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A food source that tends to disregard where food is
produced, (the environmental cost), rather than promoting an "Eat Locally"
concept.
It would take the resources of 4 to 5 worlds to support a
world population of people consuming at the rate of the typical North American. We have
set the standard which the rest of the world now deems as "most desirable." A
world living at our living standard is not sustainable and not possible.
One minor effect of the misguided priorities of LOOKS OVER CONTENT is the leathery blemish
called APPLE SCAB which sometimes occurs on the skin of organically raised apples. Apple
scab provides a classic example of a human overreaction to a very minor visual problem,
where the solution is worse than the original problem. Apple scab
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does not affect the taste of the apple
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is not harmful to humans.
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is only skin deep.
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can easily be cut off with one swipe of a knife.
Yet we have deemed the look of the apple more important
than the taste. Why do we have this overwhelming urge to have perfect looking fruit? Why
do North Americans eat with their eyes? We prefer to eat an apple that may have had up to
15 sprays applied to it before we buy it in the store. This is like Russian Roulette, with
a 10 to 20 year delay from the time the trigger is pulled, until the bullet fires. This
represents a tragic flaw in human thinking that exposes us to many man-made chemicals
having unknown long-term effects on humans and all other species of flora and fauna. This
is gradually killing us. Yet like smoking, we continue to follow these dangerous habits
and accept the consequences without questioning, like a parade of human lemmings. The gods
must be sitting back laughing as they play this "human video game called SLOW DANCING
WITH DEATH."
The result of pesticides, fungicide and herbicides is homicide. This applies not only to
customers buying the produce, but also to farm workers, who are exposed directly to these
chemicals on the farm. Children of farm workers are most susceptible. We have farmers
believing it is impossible to grow a sustainable crop without the use of agricultural
chemicals. The first step in converting a farmer to organic (away from manmade
agricultural chemicals) is to replace the radio in the tractor with a tape deck, so that
no agricultural chemical related advertising is heard.
I am very fortunate to live on Salt Spring Island, BC. The Gulf Islands are the Organic
Gardening Capital of Canada. Many of my customers will buy apples with some scab on them.
The scab becomes a "label" that the fruit is grown organically. They judge an
apple only by its taste. They also realize that the most powerful quality control measure
for food is to know the grower. So farm gate sales and farm visits then are a quality
control scouting mission. My old butcher told me. "If you don't know your meat, then
know your butcher." The same applies to fruit and vegetables.
So the focus on growing healthy fruit should be to minimize apple scab. It is interesting
thought that the farther away from "the country", customers live, the more
concern there is for looks over taste. We as a nation have distanced ourselves nature.
Some children get most of their nature and country knowledge from television.
We, the customer, are in the driver's seat. Until we demand organic produce, we will
continue to ingest agricultural residues. The choice is ours. I chose to eat organically;
in fact, when my personal apple supplies are all gone, I have a very difficult time buying
a conventionally produced apple since I don't know what residues I will be eating along
with the apple. Thank You.
The author, Harry Burton operates Apple Luscious Organic
Orchards where he raises 150 varieties of the best tasting apples using
old fashioned organic methods. To see how it's done, visit his web site. |
