"Ugly" is just as good

Interesting article in the papers about a startup named "Imperfect Produce" at the Bay Area of San Francisco. There you can buy produce at steep discount. Though equally tasteful and nutritious, the vegetable and fruits are "cosmetically challenged". So here you can find lobsided bell peppers, carrots joined at the limbs, crooked egg plants and other "ugly" and discoloured fruits and vegetables.

In a world where irregularly formed produce are discarded if they do not meet the consumer aesthetic standard, there is massive food wastage. Heapfuls of non-uniform produce piled up in fields waiting to be discarded.

To attract attention and acceptance, the store has coined labels like"Real food has curves" (alike women), "bite me", "my curves are good for you" and "more to love" (for an overly large lemon for example). Unfortunately trying to sell to supermarkets was an uphill task. Somehow there is this prevalent psychological perception that non-standard looking produce can be harmful. The supermarkets were unwilling to purchase quoting difficulty in selling to consumers.

What a pity! I was just thinking if supermarkets are willing to carry such irregular looking produce it would be good learning grounds for children to accept non uniformity and learn to be open minded and to embrace diversity. So a parent can walk down an aisle showing the kid that though a particular tomato is fat and bulbous or for that matter discoloured, it is just as nutritious as any other. On deeper thought however, even if supermarkets are willing to carry such imperfect produce, they will probably need to display them in separate trays selling at substantial discounts. How then can you explain to the child such inequality? Wouldn't it reinforce the inferiority of non normal looking produce?

Perhaps only in the Bay Area of San Francisco where people think out of the box, does Imperfect Produce manage to deliver boxes of their produce at offices of tech luminaries. Perhaps only these people can bring these less than "perfect" produce home and whilst sharing such food with their kids remark that "food grows in fun and funky ways- the notion that it is uniform is just a fallacy" and that "ugly" is really just as good.