Navigating the Produce Department with PLU Codes

First, let us be clear; the FDA DOES NOT protect consumers from genetically modified (GMO) food or require informative labels on packaged produce.  The labels we see on produce appear at the whim of grocers and are suggested by industry marketers, such as the Produce Marketing Association (PMA). Marketers advocate use of labels to massage some consumer-identified concerns, such as calories, fat content, sell-by dates, and place of origin and also to assist produce departments with electronic processing and pricing. Dismissed is any industry concern about genetic modification of the seed, from which the produce grows, or the chemical soup in which it is grown.  The lack of labels, to identify GMO produce and processed foods with GMO ingredients, is part of what is driving consumers to seek organics.

Although Produce Look Up (PLU) codes are established by the International Federation of Produce Standards (IFPS) for the industry, consumers can get information from them as well. The PLU codes, when present, appear on the small sticky label stuck to the skin of fruits or vegetables, and identifies how it was grown, what species it is and, of course, helps the industry with electronic processing and pricing.

Most commonly seen are four-digit PLU codes. They indicate produce grown using chemicals, many of which are toxic and some proven carcinogenic, but which the FDA approves. The Agra-industries and chemical-industries, an almost invisible line separating them, have successfully lobbied the FDA to allow many chemicals to be A-listed for use in growing food. Often, those seeking the licenses to sell the chemicals have supplied the only information reviewed by the FDA, before approval.

A five-digit PLU code, beginning with the number "9" identifies organically grown produce. However, it should be noted that the green and white "USDA certified organic" label is the only reliable symbol available to consumers today. The words "organic," "naturally grown, or "all natural" are not trustworthy indicators of a product's pedigree, rather they are terms that are sometimes used to lure consumers to products they might otherwise avoid.

The PLU system is already capable of identifying GMO produce with a five-digit code but it is so rarely used few know it exists.  The first digit of the GMO PLU code is "8". This tells the consumer that the produce was grown from a seed, in toxic conditions for which the plant was "genetically engineered" to survive. More information about  PLU codes is available at http://www.plucodes.com/ .

A PMA executive offered this information, at a meeting of association members, broadcast on YouTube,

"Labels do matter because consumers are bringing their ideals to the grocery store."  Therefore, consumer concerns appear to be important to the industry, and statistics indicate that most consumers would not knowingly purchase GMO foods. Yet, finding a sticker with the PLU code for GMO produce is akin to finding hen's teeth. This may be due to the fact that Monsanto, the patent holder of GMO seeds and primary producer of most of the chemicals used, is a PMA 'partner', as indicated on their website.

Consumers are, somewhat, complicit in their own fleecing, when it comes to buying food. According to the PMA, "the majority of consumers get their produce information from the package, produce section store signs, family and friends and the produce department staff."  Since labeling is at the whim of the store, as are their signs, and the same store sources and department staff educate family and friends; it is easy to see how the equation favors the industrial food industry over consumers. 

Consumers fail before they begin their hunting and gathering expeditions because the places they hunt are laden with information land mines.  GMO produce looks bigger and always picture perfect which can conceal old produce with diminished nutrient values.  It usually lacks taste and ingesting the genetic modification assets of the plant is unhealthy. 

The second choice, and most prevalent, is the produce grown in the FDA's approved chemical soups. These also have less nutrients and taste, and the chemicals that permeate their skins withstand washing. They also have abnormal shelf lives.

Organic grown produce is generally rich in nutrition and taste. It has a normal life span and, after weighing the health liabilities of other produce growing methods, are well worth any difference in price.

While the PLU codes can be helpful for both the industry and consumers, the FDA must seriously address their responsibility to safeguard the American consumer with policies that require informative and appropriate food labels. Consumers must be willing to become informed shoppers and invest their time and money in their own health.  

We Can, We Must, Do Better

It was late March of 2012.  The temperature was 80 degrees.  The sun was shining and the breeze was light. It may have been the average spring day if it were not for the fact that I was walking my dog in northern Illinois.  We should have been tramping through the vestiges of the winter's retreating snows in a brisk 40-degree wind. Since it had been over 80 degrees for more than a week, the grass was green and early-emerging flowers, meant to arrive for Easter, were in full bloom and threatened to expend all their celebratory glory and expire before Easter arrived.  An old man and a young boy were busy feeding fish at a pond's edge and ducks lazily paddled toward them for a share of the booty.

Watching the feeding frenzy, I thought of how naturally people recognize and accept the foreign universe of fish in their water world, or the symbiotic relationship of human and animal universes interconnecting, as with my dog and I. We walked together, two alien universes sharing an experience and communicating on some level of a relationship, just like the boy, the man and the fish were. 

Easily we encourage and welcome an alien presence to flutter at our bird feeders. We recognize and use our experiences with nature for our poems and songs, our recreation, our fantasy and enjoyment as well as to stimulate our human sense of wonder.  We acknowledge that we can learn from our observations of nature.  We can be revolted but mostly we are captivated by our sense of understanding and oneness with many other creatures' behaviors. Why then, is it so difficult for humans to recognize the responsibility of our relationship with nature, or as many like to term it these days "the environment"?

Blithely, we toss our trash, laden with chemicals, into landfills that percolate the poisons into the watery habitats of many creatures.  Carelessly, we farm using methods and chemicals that destroy ecosystems upon which multitudes of life forms depend, including our own. Animals that give their lives for our subsistence, we unnaturally imprison for convenience, causing them to suffer their short-lived lives under our inhuman and thoughtless care, rather than raising them in natural habitats.  We invite the birds to our feeders hung over lawns treated with petro-chemicals that kill them as well our weeds.

Nature's life forms, including humans, exist in environments that are part of and interact with many other environments, often depending on each other to survive. Too often, humans easily dismiss the balance in nature as unimportant, unconscious of how much their own existence is as dependent upon the interaction and balance as any other life form is.  Many religions emphasize the importance of nature to the extent of imposing the responsibility of oversight on the human species. How miserably we are failing. 

We talk about conservation as an answer to the dwindling species populations, like Polar Bears for example. Yet, are the last Polar Bears in a zoo the answer or just a conscience-wash for those who are semiconscious? Imprisoning specimens will not fulfill our oversight responsibility. We have to do better than that. 

2012 A vote for survival.

Edison and Sinclare clearly understood the nature of people who, today, deny global warming and chant "drill baby drill." 

In 1916, Edison stated, "We should make use of the forces of nature and should obtain all our power in this way.  Sunshine is a form of energy, wind and sea currents are manifestations of this energy.  Do we make use of them?  Oh no!  We burn forests and coal, like tenants burning down our front door for heating.  We live like wild settlers."

In the early 1900's Upton Sinclare wrote, “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.”

Obviously, careless people have existed since the beginning of time.  It is a marvel that the species has survived, or is survival a fleeting fancy and the reality a harsher truth.  Could it be that we are slowly burning our front door for heat and living like wild settlers still?  Are we so fraught with the worship of power, prestige, and wealth that we live with wild abandonment, pushing the cost of our greed and recklessness onto future generations? Could our ever-growing lust for abundance, even at the expense, globally, of others of our species, be slowly deteriorating the gene pool? Are there enough voices of reason in this human wilderness to prevent extinction?

Sinclare was optimistic that America could change. His optimism inspired his book, "The Jungle."  Realizing how slow the process is and how much his book did cause change in the early days of the meat "industry," could give one hope. However, today many of those conditions he illuminated have resurged.  That resurgence has occurred because modern advertising anesthetizes the public and multiple layers of middlemen have been wedged between suppliers and consumers.

Many of today's issues hide behind the size and complexity of corporate relationships and inbreeding coupled with a media dependent upon advertiser's support.  Sinclare's view, regarding how difficult it is for individuals to do what is morally and ethically right when their salaries depend upon denying a problems existence, remains as true a detriment to today's society as it ever was. Thus, some people deny the science of global warming and others profit from poisoning the land, air and water, in the name of productivity and profit.

Edison's foreshadowing observation is reality in Haiti today. Nearly void of trees, due to poor agricultural regulations, a corrupt government, and because the common fuel is charcoal, Haiti suffers.  Its lush forests are now gone, cleared for fuel and industrial farming by monolithic citrus operations. Re-forestation is a faltering startup project and, because treeless soil cannot stop water runoff, the riverbeds are dry and multitudes starve, thirst and suffer devastation from weather events.  Some even claim that the weight lost along with the trees changed the load on subterranean plates and may have contributed to the massive earthquake January 12, 2010.

Modern Edisons and Sinclares rile against an American government, festooned in corporate donors, relying on a contaminated Electoral College System of elections, and federal agencies infiltrated by wealthy business representatives with a solitary interest in their own wealth, with service to their country an afterthought. Too often, our responsible stewards of earth and resources, even learned scientists, are trivialized as "environmentalists" in an attempt to demonize their concerns.

When political candidates ignore the reality that fossil fuel kills in its capture and use; support agriculture modalities that are inhumane, soil depleting and toxic to the air, land and water; then, many agree, their underlying motivations must be scrutinized.  Does power, prestige or wealth motivate their indefensible positions? 

Today's voters, charged with finding candidates with honorable motivations, do not have an easy task. Super PACS, with unlimited financial resources, and a distracted media conspire against them.  However, voters must work to elect honorable representatives. 

It is wise to remember that before 1950 Haiti produced and consumed more than 80% of its food. As of 2008, Haiti imported more than half of its food while the farmers suffered due to government agriculture policies that allowed monolithic corporations to reign over operations and export product leaving poverty and deforestation in its wake. American corporations, and some candidates, are promoting the elimination of government oversight that has traditionally protected the health and well-being of American citizens.

Today, voters must vote as if their life depends on this 2012 election outcome, because it does.