Snow White took a bite of the perfect red apple and look where it got her. Right?

Supermarkets go to great lengths to make sure that their produce looks pleasing to the eye. Let’s take that perfect red apple as an example. As apples grow they develop a natural waxy surface making them look dull. This is called the ‘bloom’ and it protects the apple as it grows and helps it to maintain water. But much of this natural wax is lost from tree to table during supermarket production and then replaced with a food grade synthetic wax and polished up to give us that most enticing shiny look. If you buy the dull organic apples then the polishing is left to you.

Supermarkets also go to great lengths to remove misshaped, marked and otherwise ugly fruits and vegetables from their stock because they too lack visual appeal. What's the result? We have been brainwashed to believe that the best fruit or vegetable on the stand is the one that is most appealing to the eye. But this line of reasoning is flawed for two reasons. First off, discarding all but the pretty produce creates needless waste. Secondly, those bumps and bulges may not be a reflection of an unfortunate ancestry. What they may be in fact are battle scars serving as a visual sign of a war fought and won and perhaps an indication of heightened nutritional value.

Plants produce phytoalexins when they come under attack from things like mold, fungus, and parasites. They accumulate at the site of the potential invasion protecting themselves from the enemy. And this fight for survival has the potential for increasing the nutrient value of the fruit or vegetable.

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