Overpackaged organics
Since Tanny and I began seeking out more organic food options I’ve noticed an alarming trend for overpackaging of those foods. In particular, eggs and bananas seem horrendously overpackaged. I’d like to know why organic bananas require a plastic bag over them and organic eggs typically come in a three-fold plastic container. Is it because they sell for more so some of the extra profit is put into more expensive packaging? A case of marketing the eggs better?
In the case of bananas I could see that the bag protects the organic bananas against the pesticides that remain on the outside of non-organic bananas during shipping. Or maybe they somehow grow the bananas in the bag and this is how they can avoid pesticide use. Google wasn’t able to justify it for me.
Luckily the locally-grown eggs we buy at Fresh From The Farm come in reused containers. Alas there are no locally-grown bananas so once the winter ends and we tighten up our local-eating I may not need to worry about overpackaged bananas.
Tags: bananas, eggs, Organic, overpackaging
A quick update. This article talks a bit about organic vs. non-organic bananas. When Tanny was in Costa Rica a few years ago she toured a banana plantation and heard all the same information regarding the harm done to workers all in the name of getting us nice-looking bananas. Near the end of the article he mentions that organic bananas are ripened in bags. I suppose these may be the bags of which I wrote.
Very informative article.
This is kind of off-topic, but what is your favorite soil conditioning fertilizer? I’ve tried Bio-Magic on my veggie garden, but I don’t like the results. Anyone have suggestions?
Hi Vanna,
We just use composted sheep and cow manure. Nothing fancy here. I can’t say we get the biggest plants but they do grow. 🙂