| Sadly, most of the fresh fruits and veggies in supermarkets really are
| under-ripe flavorless things picked to be able to ship thousands of
| miles without damage.
|
| Some of the strawberries are big and red and sure look pretty, but they
| have no flavor. Peaches may or may not be edible when they finally
| ripen. Sometimes they are mealy. Seedless watermelons have half the
| flavor of the old long seeded ones we grew up with.
|
| This time of year you can skip the suprmarket and head to the local
| farmer's market and get real fresh food, just picked, full of flavor.

Or at least not go to Costco! Whole Foods has
organic bananas at a reasonable price. I've been
getting good, organic peaches at WF lately. I've
also been getting some things at local farmers
markets, but there's not much fruit in yet.
But one has to do research and try each batch,
even at Whole Foods. They've gone corporate and
can't be trusted. (I can't count how many times
I've pointed out wrong country-of-origin signs on
produce to clerks who couldn't care less.) What's
good this week at WF may not be good next week.
And even WF is turning into a factory food outlet,
while also driving small natural food stores out of
business. Next to the current crop of organic peaches
(on sale!) are organic grapes from Anthony's. Sounds
good? Anthony's is using fracking water that may be
tainted with heavy metals to get through the California
drought. (The organic law doesn't cover the topic of
sourcing water.) I've been buying the surprisingly good,
and non-bloated, non-organic grapes.
WF also carries Driscoll's berries, which
have their own hybrids and operate like the Perdue of
produce -- getting smaller farmers to act as subcontractors,
forcing them to grow the Driscoll's hybrids using Driscoll's
methods. I wouldn't touch a Driscoll's product, for both
moral and health reasons. This week I walked into a WF
and was met by a young, attractive woman who wanted
to give me a coupon for Stonyfield Farms yogurt. SF
was bought years ago by Dannon (Danone). It's factory
scale yogurt. I once saw that they buy "organic"
strawberries from China! Meanwhile I can get a few
brands of local, organic yogurt.
So all of that is happening within just a few limited
categories at Whole Foods. People who shop at mainstream
chain stores have far less chance of buying truly edible
food. People who shop around still need to educate
themselves.... and at least pay attention enough to
realize that a tart, crunchy plum or a mealy peach is not
an edible foodstuff.