Recently I was speaking with one of the cashiers where I work. The gal is an educated lady with a Bachelor’s degree. She was telling me how apples have all kinds of chemicals in them to preserve them. Hearing that was alarming to me because I know that is a false statement. Immediately I said to her that when an apple is kept in cool conditions it lasts a long time. She agreed with that. I was somewhat relieved, but it got me thinking about all the misinformation going around about our food supply.

When I was a boy growing up on the tree fruit farm, we had apples that were placed in the cool of the basement in the fall. Wally would put six boxes ( the wooden ones ) in a room at the foot of the stairs so that some of the cool outside air would waft down to them when we opened the outside door. Those apples were Johnathans; we only had one tree, they were a good pie making apple.

I would eat them fresh out of the boxes all winter long. By spring the remaining apples were all wrinkled up and soft but none rotten. These apples went from the tree, to the box, to the basement, with nothing more than TLC ( Tender Loving Care ). They were good keepers.

Todays apples go from the tree, to the bin, to Controlled Atmosphere storage ( CA ), which has better keeping qualities than Wally’s basement. The exact process may not be as simple as I’ve stated for the fruit may go through the packing house first and then into CA storage.

My point is, that the methods of keeping tree fruit fresh today exceeds what it was in Wally’s time. The urban myth being propagated that apples need to be full of chemicals to keep their freshness is absolute nonsense.

The growers need to be vigilant in their efforts to present the truth to consumers. Wally used to say that the only difference between an orange and an apple was, the orange growers had a better marketing strategy; it was the teaching that oranges and their juice were better for us than apples and their juice, a strategy that prevails today. We know that apples and their juice are just as good if not better.

I would rather eat an apple than drink the juice. I’m thankful that CA storage is there to ensure that we can keep having quality tree fruit any time during the year.

email: ruralreportwithlairdsmith@gmail.com