On Feb 26, 2015, at 7:57 PM, Claude Jolicoeur wrote: > Le 18:50 2015.02.26, vous avez écrit: >> I am not particularly excited about the advantages of Arctic Apples, >> although it will be interesting to see if they eventually play a role in >> expanding the shelf life of sliced apples. > > > There was a discussion on those apples on another forum recently, and one > person had a very interesting argument, which I think makes a lot of sense. > > It would be that these apples are not intended to be sold direct to > consumers... In effect, an apple eater wouldn't care less if the apple he > eats will stay white or not. And the apple eater will always prefer a non-GMO > apple given choice and knowledge (unless the GMO apple is less expensive > obviously...). > > However, restaurants, cafeterias and other McDonald of this world is a > totally different story. For these people it makes a lot of sense to have > non-browning apples, as they can prepare plates of sliced apples in the > morning, that will still look good in the afternoon. And as we all know, no > one at McDo will ever ask if what they eat is GMO or irradiated or anything > else... Hence, these GMO apples would actually be engineered for this market. > > And by the way, as I touched the subject... Those that are old enough might > remember there was quire similar arguments many years ago about irradiated > fruits and vegetables. No one talks about this any more! Any of you out there > knows if irradiation is still done, and to what extent??? Are there > irradiated apples out there on the grocery store shelves? > > Finally, as a cider maker, I am a bit puzzled by these Arctic apples... I > assume that if used for cider (I mean hard cider here, but this could also > apply to fresh apple juice), they would produce a fully uncolored cider, like > true Champagne. While traditional cider may be quite deep in color, mostly if > the pomace is left to macerate between milling and pressing. It will be > interesting to see if some cider makers will use them to make colorless cider! > > Claude Jolicoeur > > Author, The New Cider Maker's Handbook > http://www.cjoliprsf.ca/ > http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/the_new_cider_makers_handbook/ > According to wikipedia, "In total, 103 000 tonnes of food products were irradiated on mainland United States in 2010. The three types of foods irradiated the most were spices (77.7%), fruits and vegetables (14.6%) and meat and poultry (7.77%). 17 953 tonnes of irradiated fruits and vegetables were exported to the mainland United States.[69] Mexico, the United States' state of Hawaii, Thailand, Vietnam and India export irradiated produce to the mainland U.S.[69][70][71] Mexico, followed by the United States' state of Hawaii, is the largest exporter of irradiated produce to the mainland U.S.[69]"
I think most spices are now irradiated, and not a lot of other stuff. I'm sure you are right that the primary market for arctic apples is fast food, etc. But as a consumer, I'd think they would be attractive to anyone bringing apple slices or fruit salad to a pot-luck, or to a parent packing apple slices in the morning for a child's lunch. I but different apples depending on whether I plan to eat them fresh or make pie or apple sauce. Cortland apples already have a reputation of being slower to brown, and are commonly purchased for fruit salad for that reason. I expect to see the arctic apples marketed to end consumers, as well as to food vendors. Ginda
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