Supposed fresh fruit and veg in supermarkets could be up to a year old.
nine month old potatoes, eight month old kiwi fruit etc.
Food experts accused Supermarket giants of putting profit before the health of their customers.

The shelf life of some fruit and veg can be extended to up to a year by treating the air in their storage environment with a gas
chemical known as Smart Fresh stops the fruit from producing
ethylene, a natural ripening agent.

Many so called fresh fruits and veg lie in warehouses months before they go on to the shelves.
leaves in salads are washed in a chlorine solution so missing vital nutrients.

Carrots and Tomatoes are freshest as British Tomatoes may have been picked just days earlier but imported Tomatoes
can be up to two weeks old. and also treat with Smart Fresh.

Gerry Hayman of the British Tomato Growers association
urged people to buy local.
While Joanna Blythman Best selling author who wrote Shopped
(The shocking power of British Supermarkets) , said "It is counterfeit freshness. The Customer is being conned.

Is this right Tara? :o Do you have a link to the story?

Are you suggesting this gas chemical known as Smart Fresh is a threat to our health? What exactly is it?

Tomatoes 12 months old?

I've heard some nonsense before but really. :rolleyes:

http://www.rohmhaas.com/agrofresh/agro_english/eng_choose.html

And for 'independent' academic studies (although undoubtedly with commercial backing of some kind):

http://www.hort.cornell.edu/department/faculty/watkins/Newsletter2002.pdf

http://postharvest.tfrec.wsu.edu/PC2003C.pdf

And for Smartfresh's responses to criticisms that its technology is warping the world's agricultural markets and allowing cheap exporters access to previously too distant markets: http://www.freshinfo.com/index.php?s=n&ss=nd&sid=37958&s_txt=smartfresh&s_date=0&ms=6.6426801681519&offset=0

And the apples (can't believe I'm linking to the Daily Mail... :gag: )

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=371503&in_page_id=1774

Very worrying indeed.

I do try to grow a lot of my own fruit & veg as I have the priviledge of a big garden. I'm gently trying to instill the idea of self sufficiency into the lad too.


Supermarkets have slowly eroded the local corner grocers & butchers by undercutting them.

Now they are feeding us crap. Crap that's gassed, injected, G.M'd, falsely coloured etc.

Anyone seen the film Soylent Green?
It's only a matter of time :mad:

If you care to read my post again meaks i said Tomatoes can be two weeks old and treat with Smart Fresh. Not a year.

Apples however can be preserved up to a year with smart fresh.

Theres other methods they use eg Ethelene gas stops potatoes sprouting, controlled atmosphere keeps pears for two months and oranges for two.

modified atmosphere packaging keeps salad leaves for eleven days, Sulphur Dioxide Pads, keeps grapes for one month,
And good old fashioned refrigeration keeps kiwi fruit for eight months and lettuce for nine days, carrots for one week.

Two different methods can be used on one type of fruit or veg.
As stated for lettuce.

Smart fresh gas is pumped in during cold storage to put ripening
process on hold. It contains the chemical 1-methylcyclopropene
which halts production of the hormone ethylene used on pears .
Bannanas are picked and shipped while still green, preserved with Smart Fresh and then ripened quickly using ethylene.

Controlled Atmosphere - composition of air is altered to provide lower levels of oxygen and more CO 2
Without oxygen fruit can not ripen. Used on Lemons Limes and Satsumas.


Modified Atmosphere Packaging- Leaves are washed in a weak chlorine solution to kill bacteria.
packaging contains reduced levels of oxygen to stop leaves maturing and going brown.


Sulphur dioxide pads- kills yeasts and other fungi that make the fruit go off and prevents stems turning black.

Advances in technology mean that Apples stocked by chains including Sainsburys may have been picked 12 months earlier.

Morrisons insist their store tries to buy from local growers when possible etc.

Bearing in mind this suppose to be fresh fruit and veg.

Daily Mail

Not sure if anyone caught it but there was a recent Newsnight special dedicated to the end of the "oil age" (bit premature, but was interesting none the less).

The experts on the program were asked how the end of oil would effect us as a country. One of them replied that communities would become more local, with more local shops and local produce. Out of town supermarkets would become a thing of the past as people would be relying more on public transport.

They seemed to be dwelling on this as a negative, personally I would over the moon if supermarkets were replaced by local shops selling local produce (although, granted.. the end of oil production probably means we will all freeze/starve or kill each other before we get a chance to visit a local shop).

It's not just the fruit/vegies in supermarkets that are manky. The vast majority of ready made meals are poisoned with unhealthy levels of MSG, salt, fat, sugar and all the other stuff that we are told is going to kill us quicker than snorting cyanide as a hobby.

The most worrying thing is that the most unhealthy food is aimed at children. All the bob the builder, scooby doo, blah, blah based childrens "meals". High in virtually everything you don't want in your body and low in everything you do. Add to that all the crisps, soft drinks, choclate, biscuits, etc that they like to put on the checkouts (for the nag factor) and there's little wonder that childhood obesity, allergies to food additives and preservatives (responsible for hyperactivity and asbos), etc are growing problems.

I'm not really one to preach. I've been eating/drinking the same crap as everyone else for my whole life and it's never done me any harm (if you don't believe me you can ask my therapist)!

yeah, i saw a tv documentary about the banana trade this summer, and they said that some are treated and stored for upto a year, it was a bit shocking really:o

Originally posted by punk
All the bob the builder, scooby doo, blah, blah based childrens "meals". High in virtually everything you don't want in your body and low in everything you do. Add to that all the crisps, soft drinks, choclate, biscuits, etc that they like to put on the checkouts (for the nag factor) and there's little wonder that childhood obesity, allergies to food additives and preservatives (responsible for hyperactivity and asbos), etc are growing problems.
Ah, that's a government directive to redress the social balance ;)

Responsible parents who have some sort of control over their kids don't have a problem with this product placement - it's the uncontrollably wild scum that is being sold a shorter life :hihi:

(It's a joke :rolleyes: - but it could be true ;) )