Oddly Shaped Vegetables Allowed in Europe
by Bonnie Alter, London 
on 08.13.08
In Europe and North America supermarkets like to sell fruit and vegetables that are round and plump and perfectly shaped...and they know their customers. However many of us are learning that the gnarled carrots and funny-looking tomatoes found in farmers' markets actually taste better than the apples that are perfectly formed but tasteless. The European Commission, the parliament of Europe and arbitor of all standards, has now recognised that throwing away imperfectly shaped food is wasteful and is part of the global food crisis. They are reforming the strict rules governing matters such as the colour of leeks, the bendiness of cucumbers and the shape of carrots. These rules have caused thousands of tons of fruits and vegetables to be dumped. For example, the banana: according to the Commission “the thickness of a transverse section of the fruit between the lateral faces and the middle, perpendicular to the longitudinal axis . . . must be at a minimum of 27mm”. Hmmm.... and " a string of onions must consist of no fewer than 16 onions bound together" and "asparagus must be green for at least 80% of its length."
But the times are changing and so are the standards: the Commission is planning to scrap standards for 26 fruit and vegetables including apricots, onions, peas, carrots and melons. But France, Spain, and Italy are opposed, claiming that standards “play an important role in market operations while protecting consumers”. The compromise: keep the standards for tomatoes, apples, pears, strawberries, lettuce and kiwi fruit. :: The Times
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WOW... there is something wrong with this world.
If the Commission thinks that by allowing mis-shapen fruits and veggies will cut down on sales and profitability, why not donate that food that has been going to waste to homeless shelters, food banks and orphanages?
Seems to me that the wasting of food is a huge contributor to starvation that is occurring in every country on the planet.
Personally I would rather buy a bendy cucumber that is of its natural state than one that has been polished with wax, just to make it look pretty on the shelf.
'I Accept Ugly' by the UK eco-clothing company, Howies:
http://www.howies.co.uk/content.php?xId=58&xPg=2
So how was that compromise reached? Are the standards for tomatoes, apples, pears, strawberries, lettuce and kiwi somehow more related to the safety of those fruits and vegetables than the standards for bananas and cucumbers, or is it just political theater, concessions to entrenched interests posturing for support?
Are these fruits and veggies really thrown away, or are they the items used to make juices and other food products that do not rely on the good-looking, proper shape? I really do not know, but would like to think they are not simply wasted.
They are completely wasted and used as "green manure" for the fields or made into cattle feed.
There's a film, by French Director Agnes Varda - "The Gleaners and I" that really exposes this absurd situation and the people that try to avoid wasting all this food.
If this cosmetic control and overbuying were irradiated I imagine enough food would be spared to eliminate a lot of hunger in the world without increasing production.
I'm glad we're being confronted with this.
Who decided we had to be so picky about food anyway??
i HATE the wax on cucumbers! you can't get it off! it's so gross - i always have to peel them, which makes me sad 'cause i like the peel. at Central Market (kinda like Whole Foods, but owned by SW US grocery chain HEB) the cucumbers are sometimes sold in a shrink-wrapped plastic 'skin'. i hate the plastic, but there's no wax and i can eat the whole thing. . . but then i feel bad about the plastic. :(
apples get waxed, too. makes me so mad! but at least that wax is thinner and i can get it all off. - i've even found wax on plums!
I really, really hope that the people in charge (it's really all and always about the "people in charge"...some of them are only in charge of their own actions, but those who are responsible for the actions of others and don't encourage the BETTER of the BEST ways to do things are just wronging the greater good...we need good managers and leaders...from the White House to our produce markets...sorry for the long parenthetical comment) are not allowing all that oddly shaped food go to waste. I would never mind eating oddly shaped food, but peeling oddly shaped food isn't easy. I don't peel cucumbers (hooray for extra fiber), but I do peel carrots. About the wax, as long as it's not wax from bees, I don't mind it. The wax really helps preserve food. I do always prefer organic produce, of course, and I *assume* that the wax is food-grade...not that that gives me much hope that it still won't have something toxic in it.... Sigh.
Some of the world's biggest problems are caused by "cosmetic" obsessions, like a previous poster mentioned. I know this is really off-topic, but a brand new trend among homosexual men seems to be "anal bleaching" (I won't describe it...look it up if you're curious.). I think there's even a known or suspected carcinogenic in salon-used varieties of this skin-lightening cream. Someone...someone in charge...decided that our cottons needed to be whiter, that our sugar and bread needed to be whiter, and now, ladies and gentleman of the fair-skinned persuasion--know ye that your anuses are no longer doomed to the fate of being naturally darker than the skin on most of the rest of your body.
Everything has to be prettier, "perfecter", bigger, and better at all costs. It's global brainwashing. (I'm sorry to say that even this being a Discovery Channel site makes me very uncomfortable. Animal Planet is for whom? Animal lovers?? No...it's for brainwashed and self-contradicting "pet owners" who can say they love their dog and still go out deer-hunting. These people can watch an entire show about eagles or penguins and be completely fascinated by their beauty, dignity, and charm, and then fully enjoy their turkey (same species, you know!) sandwich after the show. ...sorry, another long parenthetical comment....) I worked in a health food store kitchen where most of us were very conscious of food economics and very resistant to ideas about cosmetically perfect food. It was a good feeling to know, too, that our managers and the store owner (this was a small business operation) also supported our "real food" ethics. With corporate stores the average worker has no control over perpetuating any of these ethical ideas...Whole Foods Market is no friend of mine and I do not shop there unless I'm really desperate for something. They are no friends to neighborhoods who plow many small family-owned health, gourmet, and specialty food markets down...and they contribute nothing to neighborhoods...to real community cohesion that **does NOT** exist outside of their check-out line. They add mega-arrogant health-food church monstrosities of buildings and parking lots to major cities and care nothing of joining in with every other major retail chain like Starbucks, Gap, Barnes and Noble, on destroying the absolutely irreplaceable unique nature and character of cities. Mom and Pop stores in cities may soon become a glimmer of nostalgia.
Thank you, Mr. Romano from 1970's and '80's Brooklyn, NY for your fruit and vegetable store. Thank you for being there, for smiling at me when I was a little girl shopping there with my mother. Thank you for being the same person to order the food, to stock the bins, and to even ring us up at the cash register and bag our food. Thank you, most of all, for selling us your oddly shaped food.
But odd shapes can also mean there's something wrong with the fruit. The regulations on bananas in the EU came from a simple fact that bananas treated with certain types of pesticides are way more curved. And not allowing the import of oddly shaped bananas was a very cheap way to keep pesticides out of the EU market.
Ondrej:
Bananas from the Madeira and Azores islands in Portugal aren't allowed in EU space because of their shape (small and curved) only but they are sold in contienental Portugal which uses the exact same food regulations as the rest of EU!
There's nothing wrong with them they're just a different species from the Cavendish which the only one people normally know.
These banana plantations are way closer to home and are cultivated in small farms organically, which causes them to conserve for less time but they ship from far closer (less fuel and money for Big Fruit).
There's no logic for this restriction, EU is just picky about food like a spoiled child.
I don't know where you got the idea that curved bananas are pesticide related- organic or wild fruit tends to be more irregular and imperfect than pesticide and GMO's!