Watermelon Labeling

Watermellon, originally uploaded by G. & A.Jimenez.

Watermelon shippers are adding labels so you can tell where your melon came from.

Other watermelon growers using HarvestMark include Coosaw Farms, Grower’s Select, Melon 1, Mouzin, Premier and Sun State. Today, nearly 150 million produce products have been enabled with HarvestMark traceability, from berries and tomatoes to watermelons and peppers and more.

More major watermelon shippers will begin offering retailers and consumers the ability to obtain item- and case- level traceability information via YottaMark, Inc.’s HarvestMark solution for its entire watermelon shipment in 2009.

Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Melon 1, Texas-based Borders Melon Co. and Georgia-based Borders Melons East have are the latest companies to join the expanding list of watermelon growers and shippers implementing HarvestMark for the 2009 harvest season.

I guess their will be an individual number you on the fruit sticker that you can put into a website so you can tell what farm it came from. I wish more companies would employ this kind of labeling. All it really takes is a couple of computers and stickers. And there are allready stickers with lots of information on most fruits now.(How to read stickers)

Via Majikthise.

Fruit Stickers

DSCN2234, originally uploaded by maryearly75.

I have been thinking about fruit stickers for a couple of days now. Eat Drink Better has a post about how to read the stickers on your fruits and vegetables. It is interesting.

On each sticker is a number. The number tells you how the fruit was grown.

A 4 digit number means it was conventionally grown (using chemicals).

A 5 digit number beginning with a 9 means it was grown organically.

A 5 digit number beginning with an 8 means it was genetically modified

But no information on what I really want to know. Why do cucumbers not have a sticker? All the other fruits and veggies do.

Watermelon Sex

Researchers at Texas A&M University's Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center have found watermelon to have the same properties as Viagra.

Experts claim that the red-fleshed fruit contains an ingredient that affects the body's blood vessels in the same way as when a man takes the sex drug.

Researchers believe that the juicy fruit could be used to help men who suffer from erectile dysfunction.

Watermelons are loaded with an organic compound called citrulline that can trigger blood vessels to relax, much like Viagra does, according to scientists from Texas A&M University in the United States.

Mom always said to eat your fruits and veggies. No word on whether it had to be a traditional round shape or square.

Crunchy Chicken

Notice the new button on the top right of my blog. After reading My Forbidden Fruits(and Vegetables), Crunchy Chicken wants us to petition congress about the farm commodities restriction.

Here is the deal. Once a farm enters the commodities program it can only grow corn, soy beans, wheat, and rice. The land can not be used for fruits and vegetables or the farmer will be severely penalized. Two points I will stress are these from the Forbiden Fruits op/ed.

Why? Because national fruit and vegetable growers based in California, Florida and Texas fear competition from regional producers like myself. Through their control of Congressional delegations from those states, they have been able to virtually monopolize the country’s fresh produce markets.[...]
Last year, Midwestern lawmakers proposed an amendment to the farm bill that would provide some farmers, though only those who supply processors, with some relief from the penalties that I’ve faced — for example, a soybean farmer who wanted to grow tomatoes would give up his usual subsidy on those acres but suffer none of the other penalties. However, the Congressional delegations from the big produce states made the death of what is known as Farm Flex their highest farm bill priority, and so it appears to be going nowhere, except perhaps as a tiny pilot program.

Go see Crunchy Chickens letter. Also, Burban Mom. Do not copy their letters exactly. A form letter does not count as much as a regular letter. Congress. Senate.

Micheal Pollan described author of In Defense of Food said this was the books mantra.

Eat food.
Not to much.
Mostly plants.

The folks at Edible Portland came back with some of their own. I think this one is my anti bio diesel, anti commodities mantra.

Grow corn.
Just for food.
Not cars.

Morning Cup Of Tea

It seems my morning cup of tea is good for me. Of course I knew that. A couple of studies in the news today about eating fruits and vegetables. Seems those old wives tales are true. Where did that knowledge come from? This study even suggests that food can be medicine how revolutionary.

In fact, "foods can be medicine," added Jardine, co-author of a manufacturer-funded study of a "punch" that appeared to reduce the growth of prostate cancer in mice.

Of course you do not have to eat the manufacturer-funded punch. You could just have a berry smoothie. And I all ready drink a hefty four to six cups of green tea a day.