I'm Willing to Die to Get Rid of Those Little Stickers on Fruit

I'm willing to die to get them to stop putting little stickers on every single piece of fruit in the world. Someone has to come forward. Might as well be me. My series was canceled, anyway.

The supposed beauty of these stickers is that, if you're poisoned, you have a way of tracing the fruit back to a particular lot, a particular shipment, a particular grower. Of course, this assumes that you carefully removed the sticker and put it somewhere you can find it as you start to choke to death or break out in hives. Right. Then you grab the sticker, make your 800 call or visit the grower's website, and, before your funeral is over, the bad guys are locked up.

It's a beautiful system.

I wonder how much paper is used, and how much sticky gum, in labeling EVERY SINGLE *#@!* piece of fruit in America. Tons and of tons of paper. Tons and tons of adhesive. And how many worker-hours go into applying the little buggers? And how many of our hours go into into removing them?

How many people, for that matter, inadvertently eat the stickers, and then choke to death? There's an under-represented group. Who's looking out for them? I am.

We have a national mania for trying to protect ourselves from, well, everything. This one goes too far. Proponents of fruit-labeling will tell me that if such labeling saves even one life, it's worth it. I dispute that. I'm not so sure. Maybe we need to sacrifice someone occasionally on the altar of common f**king sense.

If I have to be the sacrificial lamb, so be it. It's a far, far better world I go to, where fruit isn't labeled, and I can put my time, money, attention, and paper to better use.

Then let's go after shrink wrap. And aluminum foil under the tops of yogurt. Come on! Ingest a little poison sometimes! Better that a few of us die than continuing to clog our landfill with all the plastic and aluminum that lie beneath the cap of EVERY SINGLE ITEM WE PURCHASE FROM A PHARMACY OR GROCERY STORE.

We can't, and needn't, try to protect each other from the occasional psycho who wants to poison someone. Look at the price we're paying. (And I'll bet someone will write: how can you put a price tag on saving a life?) Better to draw lots, sacrifice the occasional consumer, and let the rest go free. They will thank you, the trees will thank you. Makers of little tiny fruit stickers and shrink-wrap will not.

Comments

[indypete]

Eat cake, drink beer, end of problem!

[cbodamer]

I'm all for the sacrifice of the consumer in the name of common sense. The one thing that really chaps my hide? The tiny little plastic pull tabs in orange juice cartons. What the hell is it for? What purpose does it perform? Does it keep the orange juice from escaping?

I've been reading more of your blogs lately and I enjoy them a lot.

[StephenCollins]

I think those insane little pull tabs are there to ensure you that no one has tampered with your orange juice. Of course, I like to use a hypodermic needle when I tamper with food---bypasses those little pull tabs every time.

[RadCenter]

I've encountered the same problem as CriminallySane: cashiers who quite possibly have never once ingested a fresh vegetable or fruit. I handed a clerk a bundle of asparagus once and she had no clue what it was. A simple solution to the labeling problem: Buy your produce from your local growers' market or community-­supported-­agricultur­e (CSA) farm. You get fresh food straight from the source, without subsidizing a Giant Mega Super Colossal Mart chain. And no labels!

For a list of farmers' markets and CSAs in your area, visit http://www.localharvest.org/.

[StephenCollins]

You're SO right. This is what is being called Slow Food. Food that's grown locally is better for you, fresher, and more likely to be genuinely organic. Rock on.

[CornellRedneck]

Yeah, but if we outlawed all those stickers, think of all the people we would be putting out of work! Think of the starving children in their families!

No, to be compassionate the least we could do is require placing stickers on every Hershey Kiss, M&M, peanut and cahew. Then we could indulge ourselves while feeling we are making a difference!

[StephenCollins]

Stickers on M & Ms. It's the least a caring society can do.

[Sumocat]

Shopping at farmer's markets can drastically reduce the number of little fruit labels you see. At supermarkets, however, I find the labels useful for buying fruit at the self-checkout.

[StephenCollins]

The labels I'm referring to aren't for pricing, though.

[Sumocat]

I was referring to the thin label that includes the brand name and 4-digit produce code (which I use at checkout). That's the one I see on every piece of produce in the supermarket. If there's another one, I've never seen it.

[suki21693]

Did you see the story about the little girl who almost died because she inhaled a fruit sticker into her lung? It was there for two years. Doctors had a heck of a time finding the source of her infection.

You say you are looking for people who have choked. She didn't choke, but she did suffer. Here is a link:

http://www.local6.com/spotlight/13791324/detail.html

[LittleLiberal]

Oh, come on, you know you love walking around with a banana sticker on your forehead!

We used to stick those around the sink when we'd wash a piece of fruit. We eventually had enough to wallpaper part of the kitchen.

[StephenCollins]

Wallpaper! Excellent recylcing idea.

[CriminallySane]

There are also little identification numbers for the cashier to use, in case it's an unrecognized variety*, or they fruit-buyer has mingled several different types in one of those little plastic bags.

* I have had to tell cashiers, on more than one occasion, what it was I was buying, and every now and then one asks what I will do with it. I'm usually OK with answering.­..

[jvarga]

The only labels on my fruit are the ones with the number code on each piece so the cashier knows that I'm buying apples and not watermelons. So I don't even have the benefit of having my post-death poisoning tracked :(

Also my bananas have some times had advertising stickers on them, never any cheaper because of it, however.

[jvarga]

Terrible writing by me. Should have said "So I don't even have the benefit of having my poisoning tracked post-death :("

[StephenCollins]

Thank God you posted. Now we'll know what happened and can skip the autopsy.

[cktirumalai]

I eat a banana and an apple every day, and am glad that with the first the label comes off with the peel. The label on the apple can be annoying: sometimes it takes surgical skill to remove it neatly; sometimes it ends up in your mouth, giving an odd flavor to the apple; sometimes it stubbornly sticks to the plate where you have carefully deposited it, as though it were adhesive gum. But fruit are worth the irritation of the accompanying label. So far, I have not had to call 911.