the need for visually perfect food
28 december 2006 :: john
Since I began working at the farm, the issue of how food looks comes up all the time. We discard a lot of produce because customers don't want to receive a vegetable or piece of fruit that has a spot on it.
Never mind that the spot is tiny, that 98% of that apple or onion is perfectly edible, delicious and nourishing. Cut out the bad part, eat the rest, enjoy!
To some, it is unforgiveable for food not to look as though it came from a magazine photo shoot.
Think we're the only ones after that food? Hey, it grows in dirt, gets rained on, and there are loads of microbes, bugs and animals out there looking for sustenance, too. Plus, it gets picked, sorted, put into bins, stored, placed into still more bins and boxes, and sorted again a few more times before you get it. Not to mention being forklifted and trucked along with TONS of other food.
Yet, people expect that everything they eat to have no soft spots, no discoloration, no flaw to threaten a perfect eating experience.
People have spots. People have holes and soft areas and zits and other flaws. People can also smell really bad, cut you off in traffic, and sometimes, attack you with automatic weapons. No tomato ever pulled a gun on me..
Consider two scenarios: A). No food, and B) food that's nourishing, but that has a few spots.
Are you going to toss perfectly good food because it doesn't meet your expectations in ways that aren't really important and go hungry for the sake of your aesthetic requirements, or...
...are you going to gratefully enjoy something which was grown to keep you alive?
Contribute ideas, opinions, information, articles, links: thinkplan.