Perfectly edible

If you’re among those who can afford to make environmentally friendly choices about the way you buy fruits and vegetables, you’re lucky. More and more, the produce aisle at the grocery store is becoming more daunting, with prices soaring and some commonly used veggies falling to environmental disasters like the California drought.

But perhaps you do have enough of an income to make both healthy and environmentally friendly choices.

You might have decided to reduce your carbon footprint by buying only Canadian produce, cutting out the stuff shipped in from Chile or South Africa. Or maybe you’re choosing to buy only organic. Or sticking to farmers’ markets and CSAs (Community- Supported Agriculture), where possible.

Even then, buying produce is like entering a field of political landmines, with questions about the ethics of large corporate grocery chains, monocrops and pesticide use making decisionmaking nearly impossible.

Lately, another option has entered the playing field. With the idea of food waste becoming a more prevalent discussion in North America, some supermarket chains, including Safeway, Sobeys and Loblaws, have introduced limited offerings of ugly fruits and vegetables.

This follows in the footsteps of French chain Intermarché, which in 2014 introduced Inglorious Fruits & Vegetables, a section for small and misshapen produce at a 30 per cent markdown in its European locations. The popularity of the concept has spread. Not surprising, as a shift in prices and the availability of fresh food have begun to cause concern here in Canada. The thing is, government bodies like the Canadian Food Inspection Agency are partially responsible for misshapen food not being widely available until now. The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Regulations is a document under the Canada Agricultural Products Act which gives farmers clear guidelines for grading food.

Turns out, it’s not safety, but rather commerce, that has kept food from making it to the general public, and instead, ending up as food for farm animals or on compost heaps.

The grading system is based on shape, size, blemishes and dents on otherwise healthy and nutritious food. It means a strange-looking apple or an ugly potato might be labelled as a No. 2 grade fruit or vegetable, and that grade must be displayed on the product. This leaves commercial grocers and consumers with the impression that what they’re buying is not as good.

The truth is, it’s just not as pretty. And when we import our produce, the law was designed to ensure it will look its best.

So for years, this meant those perfectly edible fruits and vegetables never made it to grocery store shelves.

Canadians, like most people in the western world, waste an obscene amount of food—roughly $31 billion every year. About half of that happens after it comes home, when the meat and vegetables we buy go bad before they’re consumed. But about 30 per cent is tossed before we have the chance to notice, when Canada No. 2 carrots or Hail grade apples are quietly disposed of after sitting, unsellable, in crates.

So here’s to the ugly and imperfect veggies that, like us, just need to be accepted—warts and all.

mihal@mihalzada.com