Lifestyle Choices

So far our main concern has been the importance of freshness in some of the foods we eat on a daily basis. But what about other invisible influences and procedures that contribute to the quality of what we select from the supermarket shelves? You may feel that you can soon enough tell if an apple is past its prime just by looking at it; what you can’t tell is whether it still has pesticide residues clinging to it - or whether it’s been irradiated.

With the ‘Green’ revolution meaning as much a change in environmental attitudes as the importance of including more salads in your daily fare, it’s not surprising there is increasing concern about how our fresh foods are produced, the extent to which chemicals (some of them deadly) are used, and the risk to our health these powerful agricultural weapons pose. The other major worry that has been added to the list of consumer concerns in recent years is the question of irradiation - who uses it and why, and how safe is it?

Profile on pesticides

It’s an accepted fact of modern farming that chemicals are used to enhance both quantity and quality. As consumers, we have to rely on the strictly controlled marketing and sale of such products by chemical companies, the safety legislation and checks carried out by government and municipal inspectors, random testing held by food manufacturers and chain stores, and the responsible attitude of the individual farmer. However, sometimes all these elements alone are not enough.

In recent times, the outcry over Natal’s Tala Valley pesticide battle - where concerned farmers claimed that environmental contamination by large-scale producers in the vicinity was adversely affecting their crops - and the Alar controversy in the USA (where contaminated apples caused public protest) have sharpened public concern. Today there is a definite swing away from heavy chemical use by certain fresh-food producers, notably the apple and pear growing industry who are strongly advocating what they term ‘integrated pest management’. This relies on using the minimum amount of chemicals necessary to maintain a good crop while inflicting the least amount of damage on the environment. The motivation is threefold:

Firstly, with increasing ‘Green’ awareness worldwide, farmers are having to toe the European line (which is much tougher than ours onpesticides) or risk losing out in the extremely lucrative export market. Secondly, as unionisation increasingly safeguards the worker, growers are having to be more aware of the potential poison risk to farm labourers and they are monitoring pesticide use far more thoroughly than in the past. And thirdly, certain courageous growers who have moved away completely from pesticides have reported an initial dip in both quality and production, followed by a good upswing with excellent quality and bumper returns.

However, good as all this news is, it’s going to be some time before we see the practical results on our shelves and before all the different farming industries pick up the apple growers’ cue. In the meantime, it’s as well to be aware of current practices.

Pesticides can be broken down into four main categories. These are:

• soil fumigants used to sterilise the soil;
• herbicides used to kill weeds and other plants that might inhibit the
• crop’s growth;
• insecticides used to kill hostile insects (unfortunately they kill the friendly ones like ladybirds too) and
• fungicides used to prevent mould formation after harvesting and during transportation.

Although farmers may not use all four procedures (and by law, crops may not be sprayed within six weeks of harvesting), there’s a distinct possibility there could be residue on the fresh produce you buy. What isn’t known yet is what long-term effect this may have on our health. What we do know however, is that by simple changes in our domestic treatment of fresh produce we can reduce the ‘residue risk‘. Some tipsare:

Avoid eating unwashed fruit or vegetables, no matter how tempting the street vendor’s wares may be on a hot summer’s day!

• Rinse all fruit and vegetables in cold water, scrubbing the skin surface of carrots, for example, with a nailbrush kept specifically for this purpose. (As an additional precaution, you can dip the produce in a weak solution of a sterilising liquid such as Milton, then rinseand wipe dry.)
• Remove outer leaves of vegetables such as spinach, cabbage and lettuce and discard (or alternatively, wash extremely well).
• Thinly peel suitable fruits or scrape vegetables - but remember that `thinly’ is the operative word as many nutrients are stored just underthe skin.

Irradiation update

In recent years, irradiation has become one of the major methods of maintaining food quality and it’s not only making news but it’s controversial to boot. So controversial in fact that many in the food industry prefer to use the words `radurisation’ or `radurised’ to avoid the negative connotations of the word ‘irradiated’. Possibly because of consumer resistance, some major food chains such as Woolworths and Pick ‘n Pay prefer not to carry any irradiated fresh foods, but for many of us, they are an increasing part of our trolleyload.

In South Africa, we irradiate about 5 000 tons of food a year, including some fresh fruit, potatoes, onions, garlic, mushrooms, herbs and spices, and a variety of processed meats, chicken and fish.

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