On the Merits of Locally Produced Apples and Apple Juice
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 06. 5.05
Everybody knows that tomatoes and apples are best when grown at home. Johnny Appleseed's kharma ripples ahead through time. That's why these short excerpts from "The Hindu", dealing with accelerating Chinese apple and apple juice exports, are disturbing. Its as if we've been sleepwalking through the produce section. Wakeup time: China is "the world's biggest producer of apples", and "its total output surpasses the combined production of the next ten top producing countries, including India. The U.S. has been relegated to the second position". As further reported in the article... "Barely 15 years after it started planting apple trees, China's exports of apple concentrate to the U.S. increased by 1,200 per cent"..."The U.S. apple industry is crying foul. As usual, it cites lack of social standards and environmental protection among the reasons for stalling further imports"... "Moreover, U.S. producers claim that the Chinese cultivation practices require heavy intake of pesticides and are therefore unhealthy. But the fact that U.S. consumers are not complaining has put a damper on the industry claims".
When non-organic US producers are making noises about excess pesticide use on imported fruit, TreeHuggers ought to sit up and take notice.
It's still spring; order a self pollinating dwarf apple tree for your yard or for a friend you can share the crop with. Johnny Appleseed lives.
More importantly, buy from traditional farmers markets or organic to avoid the tasteless, bog-standard mono-variety soccer balls of supermarket apples:
"When Nick had worked in commercial orchards, he was instructed to bend down the branches of the Bramleys, so that the fruit was shielded from sunlight, in order to prevent it from changing colour. This also prevented it from acquiring either flavour or sweetness, but that didn’t seem to matter. “They told us to pick it unripe, when it was about as appetising as a cricket ball, and you’d need a pneumatic drill to get into it”.
“Supermarkets.... They’re interested only in consistent appearance. They dictate what gets grown, how big it should be, what colour it should be, how it’s picked, how it’s stored. They’re not interested in taste. Even when they’ve got a good variety, it tastes like mush. A commercial grower is told to put his apples in a fridge, so they can’t mature. I think they’re completely round the bend if you want to know.”
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/10/30/fallen-fruit/
see also http://www.applejournal.com/bk003.htm