Stop this!
This blog: if successful- will be an online petition submitted to the FDA with the intent to force them to outlaw this kind of stickering. As you see here there are 2 delicious organic White Nectarines. The sticker on the left has been removed and the sticker on the right bears out what has been done to try to remove the sticker without the damage. First the Nectarines were firm on the outside when bought. Naturally I tried to remove the stickers first. But it was clearly impossible. So next they were soaked in warm water until the water got cold. Still impossible to remove the stickers. At no point in time was it possible to remove the stickers without damaging the fruit. And note that I do delicate mechanical repairs for a living so my hands are very adept at pulling these things off. But it's my contention that this kind of a sticker will not come off. And yes most of us have seen them, many millions of Americans come in contact with these stickers on fruits and vegetables. And here I will preclude fruit with peels, I really don't care about stickers on Banana's, Oranges, etc.
Why the stickers are there: I once went into a Safeway and found organic Red Peppers with this kind of a sticker on them, the kind that made me fairly certain I couldn't get them off without tearing the skin. But a few of the peppers had no sticker. Since it seems impossible to get this particular kind of organic produce sticker off- it seems logical that the peppers without stickers came from the source that way. Whether they didn't stick or wern't stickered is impossible to say but again it's my contention they let them ship without the sticker. So I took 1 of the these stickerless peppers up to an employee taking inventory of the produce sections and asked him: "Would you rather have a pepper that had a sticker on it or not?" He replied that the sticker was there to signify that the pepper was organic. OK I accept that the product is guaranteed organic. He goes on to say that without the sticker there's no guarantee. Now that leaves it up to Safeway to stand behind the organic certification on the peppers they buy. And given that the produce could be tested randomly it's a good bet that they will be organic, from the same source as the stickered peppers. But now we get an idea of why they don't want that sticker coming off, because it would be easy to slip non-organic products into the lot with the organics. But clearly there are safeguards in place to guarantee that all the products are organic within a certain lot. There is nothing however protecting that produce from the loss of part of the skin and to me this is just as much of a crime. With a Red Pepper granted the skin is a bit tougher than a nectarine and if you rub the sticker in warm water you can get the surface off and then slowly roll the adhesive off. But if you do that with the nectarine you'll just rub off the skin as well. Note that this is a certain type of sticker, particular to organic produce, and on the types with smooth thin skin. It seems that they find with these types of fruit there's the least chance of the sticker coming off if it's glued the way these are. You rarely see the same type on a peach because with the hair they don't stick the same way. So generally the sticker on a peach is the thicker kind like and orange has.
What they're made off: according to the produce man at Safeway who did seem to be quite knowledgable on the subject - I must infer that we were talking about produce with edible skin - this type of produce has an organic based sticker. He said the sticker itself was made of sugar and I have to believe the adhesive was as well. Most likely other stickers that aren't so tough are made from organic base but use vegetable gum adhesive. The comparison is very similar to magazine labels: those you can peel use vegetable gum adhesive and those you can't may well use sugar based (but I don't know that for a fact it just seems likely). Now the produce man wanted me to be so confident this was an "organic" sticker on my organic pepper that I could eat it: please no thanks. And I am betting that of the millions of Americans who buy this kind of stickered produce very few eat the labels but undoubtedly there are some, and more power to you because it's probably the only way you'll get all of it. I don't enjoy a sticker interrupting the juicy sweet skin of a White Nectarine and I imagine most of us would be more in the camp of getting that sticker off at all costs.
It's some kind of innate love that no doubt goes back to the Garden of Eaden to see the whole skin of the fruit intact before it's eaten. It's surely significant of the best, and isn't our organic representing the best of our produce? When that skin is damaged there's no question the fruit is less valuable. An apple that had that kind of imperfection might be thrown out of the batch as an unsound fruit. So why do we tolerate this with Nectarines, Red Peppers, Tomatoes, Zuchinni and the like. And even more why do they use this particular kind. I have seen organic produce of all the kinds above with stickers that do peel, easily. So why on this great green Earth do we need stickers that won't come off. Continuing on I will post photos of more produce with stickers impossible to remove. But I will campaign on this issue until the FDA listens. It would be nice to have a huge list of people with the same complaint and I know you're out there. It just so happens I generally buy organic but I don't doubt the same is true with non-organic produce, in fact with tomatoes I can say for certain. You really have to question those stickers on produce that isn't organic. If the Safeway man was right unless the product is organic there's no guarantee the sticker is an organic. So you may well have the same sugar adhesive but a synthetic paper sticker. I don't really know how much difference it makes whether the sticker is organic or not: if it won't come off it's definitely inorganic because it destroys the sanctity of the produce.
Solutions: Please leave a comment with your experience as there's clearly a major ethical and practical dilemma here. It seems obvious the solution is to only use the veg gum based adhesive but clearly there's a reason why this doesn't solve the problem. Stickers that peel easily obviously leave open the window to slip non-organic produce in with organic and that's not right either. Although that argument falls by the wayside when we're talking about non-organic products to begin with. So there's an argument here for everybody. Even for the poorest people who cannot afford organic, they should still get a whole fruit or vegetable. I have been that poor in my life so I know the frustration one can feel. It really makes me unhappy, it's appropo to say, it chaps my hide. Thank you for participating even with 1 line of support.
