"Ugly" fruit and veg

[Babycakes]

I heard on the radio this morning that the EU regulations on 26 fruit and veg regarding what is "acceptable" for sale are going to be abolished/relaxed (not sure which, and inconsiderate customer wanted served so I missed bits of the report) Apparently "they" say this will allow the "ugly" fruit and veg to be sold and "they" also say it could drive the prices down by about 40%.
I did not realise that it was actually EU law that fruit and veg had to look a certain way in order for it to be sold - I thought the "ugly" ones were just rejected by the supermarkets for the sake of their own aesthetics!! Or have I picked this up all wrong...? I hope I haven't - bring on fruit and veg that actually looks real and not like a picture in one of Grace's baby books!!

[kate egg]

Yep - another crazy EU law - no bendy cucumbers, perfectly round apples and tomatoes, kiwi fruit no smaller than a certain size etc etc. It all tastes the same and a bit of variation in size and shape is fine by me.

[Babycakes]

Have just caught the end of the lunchtime bulletin, apparently retilers are saying it could cut 40 PENCE off cost, not 40 PERCENT.

[4 french hens]

Mine will be back in fashion then?

Mike

[saint-spoon]

In true Blackadder style we will now be able to buy a turnip that's shaped just like a thingy.

Was it a total ban or were we just restricted to what we could sell as grade ‘A’ quality? It always seemed a bit funny to me that folk would want to ban the sale of produce that wasn’t within certain parameters (a cucumber could bend more than 10mm over 10cm of length). Did we actually have so much fruit and veg that we could afford to do this without anyone going hungry? Probably not. I expect it was more to do with favouring one country’s economy over another’s but I’m cynical when it comes to European government. I wonder if the current food shortages have triggered this U-turn in policy or if it’s more to do with economics.
Bizarrely we’re more worried about the shape of our tomatoes than about the welfare of a Spanish Bull destined to be ritually tortured to death in the ring for sport; the mind boggles.

[wendy]

I get them sometimes in my organic box. I don't have any problems.
Wendy
Here, here Dave with the Bull fighting thingy

[saint-spoon]

We can buy off shaped discounted fruits and veg from our local fruitier which is fine by me and I always buy funny shaped mushrooms from the shop because they’re cheaper.


I wonder if the Spanish have less care for animal welfare than us Brits because they have a higher percentage of the populous living in rural communities with a closer reality to nature. We tend to have a lot of our animal sympathies (IMHO) drawn from sensationalist media broadcasts formulated more to draw on heartstrings than give a balanced argument.

[saint-spoon]

Please allow me to apologise to any Spaniards reading, I don’t mean to generalise about the Spanish nation but merely project my opinion based on media coverage of certain aspects of the culture.

[montenegro]

as one (with hubby) who has been in rural Andalucia for 5 years, yes the Spanish do have a different attitude to animals...dogs generally are for hunting with on Sunday (and live in a shed during the week, quite often unattended!) donkeys are for carrying produce from your land back to your village house, cats are fed but by anyone in the village, they don't seem to belong to any one household. the locals say our dog is fat, and by spanish standards they are right! but we think their dogs are scrawny.

about veg.... our local markets sell what the locals produce, any shape or size goes and it all tastes like it should, full of flavour. down on the coast there are hundreds of hectares of invernaderos (plastic greenhouses) producing veg for the supermarkets in uk, france and germany using chemicals (?hydroponics ?) all to the size and shape dictated by law. horrible eyesore in a beautiful place. sorry to go on so much