Thursday, June 11, 2009

READ your fruits and vegetables!

Grocery stores tend to do a good job of keeping organic produce separate from the conventionally grown (translation: grown with pesticides) produce but how can you be 100% sure that some of the conventionally grown produce didn’t end up in the wrong bin? Easy, just check the numbers on the produce sticker!

See, all of those pesky stickers you find on your apples, oranges, etc. is part of an international PLU (price look-up) system that grocers use to make check-out and inventory control easier. Now, you can use it to make it easy to buy organic.

Here are three easy rules to remember:

1. Organic produce always starts with the number 9.
2. Conventionally Grown produce always starts with a 3 or a 4.
3. Genetically Modified produce always starts with the number 8.

Learn something new every day, huh?

3 comments:

Rachel said...

Oh! I knew about the 9 for the organic (not that I can find much of it around here, in conventional markets), but didn't know about the 8 for GMO...blech.

Thanks for the heads up...

Hey--what do you do with your excess yellow squash? I need some ideas, fast! LOL

JoAnnC. said...

I've preserved a LOT by dehydrating them. I plan to use them in the winter for soups and stews. I also blanched some and put into ziplocks for the freezer.

Kalona said...

I didn't know what the numbers meant, just thought it was the grocery store code. Thanks, JoAnn!