That's a wrap?

I don't generally end up with organic food in my grocery cart. Sometimes I get a bit pious and buy Bell & Evans chicken, grass-fed organic beef. But mostly I give organic veggies, fruits, eggs, meat, whatever a pass. Yet on a recent stroll through the produce section at Whole Foods, in search of red and yellow peppers, my eyes were drawn to the organic red pepper display. Mostly because some of those organic red peppers were swaddled in plastic wrap.

My reaction was to ask myself a question that trips off my lips (or trips through my synapses) with increasing frequency. In short form: WTF???

I guess I'm behind the times, because when I googled, it turns out that the wrappping o' the pepper has been a thing for quite a while. The first mention I found - first page of search results - was a reference to a 1986 academic study entitled "Film Wrapping to Alleviate Chilling Injury of Bell Peppers."

A 2009 article on My Plastic Free Life asked the question "Organic food in plastic packaging - isn't it ironic?" Needless to say, My Plastic Free Life wasn't enamored with the use of plastic to wrap fruit and veg:

I want to see safe product packaging added to the criteria for organic certification. I want producers to ask what “food grade” really means and for manufacturers of plastic products to be required to reveal all of their additives. I want all manufacturers to follow the principal of Extended Producer Responsibility and plan for a practical cradle to cradle life cycle for their products and packaging BEFORE putting them on the market.

Well, me, too. 

As it turns out, FreshWrap, the wrap that was wrapping those organic Whole Foods red peppers, is "the only reusable wrap on the market infused with organic botanicals proven to keep food fresh for longer."

So there's that.

But that still leaves me asking a variation on the WTF question. And that's Why The Fuck? 

A 2016 article in Sierra  - yes, the Sierra Club's mag - asked and answered the question "Why are so many organic fruits and vegetables plastic-wrapped?"

...there is some justification (mostly economic) for the use of plastic, because organic produce usually costs a lot more to grow than its industrial cousins. Spoilage, known as "shrink" in retail lingo, is a bigger concern with organic fruits and vegetables than with ordinary produce, because shrink drives up prices, which are already the biggest barrier to organics. Since one rotten apple spoils the barrel, it helps to isolate some types of produce.

Packaging also reduces dehydration, while enabling the use of UPC codes for accurate pricing. Even that individual wrapping is about price, in that folks don't want to pay for more than one item if they don't need it. Finally, organic produce in storage is not allowed to be in contact with nonorganic produce, so those pesky plastics serve a prophylactic purpose.

If you can't grow your own food or hoof it to a farmers' market, plastic may be a necessary evil. But it can't hurt to let your grocer know that you don't like it, as some stores manage to sell unwrapped organic produce. And of course, recycle packaging whenever possible.

I still don't like it, but at least I now sort of get it.

But it does remind me of the mother of a good friend of mine from high school. Mrs. H used to wrap the bananas that seemed to make their way into Kathleen's brown bag lunch with some frequency. This was the 1960s. I guess Peg was ahead of her time. She sure wouldn't have been as surprised as I was to see those red peppers all wrapped up and - as far as I'm concerned - no place to go.