What's on your lettuce?

[Bring4th_Austin]

Thanks, Austin! Very helpful! I was just about to say, my lettuce doesn't have it! But we didn't get a winter this year so that explains it.

Austin is right. Now that I think about it, last year (when we did get some hard freezes) my greens did take on a different texture sometimes. That was before I knew about this but I seem to remember something like that.

To get the same solid film in the video it has to be a very frost resistant romaine lettuce. Normal lettuce would die at the temperatures required for this.

I looked into it again after I went to clear out a high tunnel I had rejected the past couple months...it had gotten too cold for even the tunnel to protect the lettuce, and while it hadn't died, it wasn't marketable quality. As I picked the lettuce out for the goats, I noticed all of romaine had "blisters" and I was able to peel the skin off just like the video. It happens with other types of lettuce too but I think the romaine skin is easy to peel.

[Monica]

To get the same solid film in the video it has to be a very frost resistant romaine lettuce. Normal lettuce would die at the temperatures required for this.

I looked into it again after I went to clear out a high tunnel I had rejected the past couple months...it had gotten too cold for even the tunnel to protect the lettuce, and while it hadn't died, it wasn't marketable quality. As I picked the lettuce out for the goats, I noticed all of romaine had "blisters" and I was able to peel the skin off just like the video. It happens with other types of lettuce too but I think the romaine skin is easy to peel.

Nice to have a conspiracy theory refuted. Too bad it doesn't happen more often.

[BrownEye]

I recently picked some up with the "blisters". I was a bit paranoid at first but when peeling it I could see the fibrous makeup of what I was pulling off. I could tell it was plant material.

[Bring4th_Austin]

Of course because this one video has a natural explanation doesn't mean that we shouldn't be diligently involved in our food production system until the time comes that food producers have the well-being of humanity in mind rather than the thickness of their wallets.

[Oceania]

i think the more there are of people who grow organic humanely produced food the more it will liberate us.

[abstrktion]

I just assigned Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in my English classes. Things have been worse...my kids were horrified that we used to spray people down with DDT...just run a google image search for that one! Now we have the pink slime...

So did we decide that organic is safe from the coating on apples, etc.?

[Bring4th_Austin]

What organic produce is safe from is any sort of synthetic chemicals used in any part of the production which may be consumed. The standards for organic certification are incredibly intricate and far-reaching. Buying anything certified organic means that there are NO synthetic in any step...if there is coating, it is 100% natural, and the sources of the natural coating themselves must meet organic standards. The organic certification process is incredibly intensive and includes an outrageously thorough audit of all products present on the farm/facility of production, the packaging, the transportation, and basically every other level of production. It would be incredibly hard for any sort of coating or film that could be applied to reduce respiration to be certified organic. I would say, generally, organic produce is much safer to eat than non-organic.

But there is a wider perspective to be taken in viewing the sustainability of organic produce. If organic tomatoes are coming from a farm in the middle of Mexico where water is pumped from miles away and fossil fuels are used to transport them all around the world, and there is little consideration given to the health of the soil, local ecosystem, or even workers, then are these tomatoes really better than local tomatoes sprayed with a low amount of low-toxicity pesticide which is easily washed off? Sure it is synthetic free, but at what cost to the overall well-being of the Earth and humanity?

Apples specifically are a tricky beast. It is incredibly hard to grow organic apples in most climates. A lot of organic fruit has to be grown in ideal conditions free from pests and diseases, usually in mountainous regions. Quite simply, apple demand could not be met if everyone decided to buy organic apples. And what is the environmental impact of importing apples from those ideal climates vs. using synthetic chemicals to grow them more locally? (I don't know the answer to that)

The impact of our diet on the world around us is immense. Buying organic produce from the grocery store may help ease someone's mind a bit, if only their personal health and the health of their family, but you can dive much much deeper into the true effect of your food. And in order for our food production system to really be brought out of the harmful cycle it is in, people will have to start asking questions other than "is it organic?"

[Oceania]

that's why if people start to grow their own stuff it's gonna be easy.