Hello lovely people - after our last "How Does it Grow?" episode on cucumbers, I got a
lot of questions about how and why some foods are waxed after harvest; and what
that's doing to our food. So let's take a deep dive, shall we?
If you check out a fruit or vegetable while it's growing, you'll notice it has
its own natural waxy coating. That coating serves a few purposes, but the
most important are: 1. It prevents water loss; 2. It protects from hungry fungi
and bacteria. Now, as we discovered in our blueberry episode of "How Does it Grow?", if
you rub that coating off, the shelf life of the food shrinks significantly -
because produce breathes and sweats. Seriously - fruits and vegetables let out
carbon dioxide, water and heat through their skin. Don't worry, as plants they
let out way more oxygen than they do carbon dioxide - ten times the amount. But
even after they're picked, fruits and vegetables are still very much alive,
breathing and sweating - which eventually leads to them shriveling and spoiling.
It's their natural waxy coating that slows down that inevitable demise. Well
what do we do down at the farm? We take our freshly picked produce and we wash
it at the packing house to get rid of dirt and soil borne bacteria, pesticides
fungicides, and oops, there goes that terrific natural coating.
Right, so then we take our squeaky clean produce and we send it down the line to
be sprayed or dipped in a solution that dries into a new protective coating; and
of course these coatings are supercharged - they not only slow down
spoilage and fight off fungi, they add shine.
Because we humans sure do love our shiny things...These new coatings can do all
these things because they're not just one substance; they're a cocktail of
things. Most food coating companies guard their formula, but they typically include
a wax to lock in moisture, a fungicide to keep the food from going moldy, and an
emulsifying chemical to ensure the solution goes on evenly. So let's look at
the waxes first. In the synthetic camp, you have petroleum-based waxes, including:
paraffin, mineral oil, and polyethylene - the most commonly used plastic in the
world. On the USDA Organic approved list are: carnauba, which is scraped from the
leaves of the carnauba fan palm in Brazil, and shellac a resin secreted by
tiny Lac bugs in Thailand and India. There's also wood rosin that's made from
solid resin from pine stump wood and candle Lea wax from a North American
desert shrub. Oh, and organic beeswax, if you think back to our orange episode of
"How Does it Grow?", farmer Bill of Sundance Organics chooses to use beeswax on his
organic citrus. Okay, so we've got the wax in the coating, sealing in moisture.
Mixed in with that are fungicides. Fungicides are chemicals that kill fungi
who love to eat the same produce we do what we call fruit rot is a full-blown
fungi fiesta. To finish off our coating cocktail,
we have emulsifiers - chemicals added to bring all the ingredients together for
an even consistency. Morpholine is the main one on the synthetic side. It's a
chemical compound in the form of a colorless liquid, with a fish-like odor.
The FDA in the United States gives it a thumbs up, but EU regulators give it
a thumbs down. So US farmers who cook their produce with morpholine can't
export it to Europe. The problem with morpholine doesn't
seem to be with the compound itself. It's with a chain reaction that can occur in
our bodies if nitrates are present when we ingest
the morpholine. The two together can form a carcinogen - something that promotes
cancer. Where the nitrates came from - well - that could be from drinking water
contaminated with fertilizer, or eating sausages preserved with nitrates, or
simply eating lots of leafy greens which are vegetables high in nitrates. So this
is why Europe says no to morpholine; but then the US Canada and many other
countries are cool with it, because they consider the amount of coating that goes
on each piece of produce to be insignificant. All of this brings to mind
a little anecdote that I was told by Bill, our organic citrus farmer, and it's
always stuck with me he said...hang on...why don't I just get him on the line!
(Nicole): Hi Bill, (Bill): How are you Nicole?
(Nicole): I'm here with my YouTube audience I thought it would be
really interesting for them to hear the story that you once told me.
(Bill): Sure, I never ever allowed kids wedges of lemons or limes and oranges in
their drinks, because they're dosed with 6 or 7 different chemicals. I mean if they
preserve the fruit for 6 months' time and then allow them to be shipped after that,
imagine the strength of the chemicals they must be putting in there.
Beyond produce, there are unique coatings that are meant to extend the shelf life of other foods, like eggs or
nuts sold without their shells, even candies, where the coating adds a nice
dazzling glossy finish. The prevalence of all these waxy coatings just reminds me
how far our food travels and how long it has to stay fresh. We get
blueberries from Chile, pineapples from Costa Rica, bananas from Ecuador...Even
here in the United States, I live on the East Coast, and so much of the produce in
my local stores comes from California, something like 3,000 miles away. Our
global food system depends on food lasting longer than ever before.
Okay so maybe an even bigger question is: Should I buy organic produce to avoid
morpholine and petroleum-based stuff on my food? Well, the whole organic versus
conventional debate is a lot to tackle. There are multiple threads to explore,
all really important - at least to me - so I'm going to do a separate video all
about understanding organic food and the choices that I make for me and my family.
So if you want to get the alert on that video make sure: 1. You're subscribed;
and 2. You hit that bell icon. Oh and 3. Let me know your food questions,
and maybe we can do a video on that! Bye guys!