Daily Lemon: Are your fruit and veggies worth while eating?

Are your fruit and veggies worth while eating?
The distrubing story appeared in Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish only), my daily morning read. It was about the fruit and the vegetables we buy in the belief they are good for us, and about how these fruits and veggies, colorful as they may be, are so diluted and abused they are hardly worth the effort of chewing and eating them anymore. Many are so low in nutrients and vitamins they would not pass international norms, like the FAO requirements. The paper used a refractometer (Wiki) to measure the sucrose level, Brix, (Wiki) in different fruits and vegetables. A high Brix level means, among other things, that the fruit or vegetables tastes sweeter, contain more vitamins and minerals, won't be as suceptible to spoiling, and will be hardier and thus require less pesticides. A low Brix level may be caused by harvesting the fruit or vegetables before they have ripened, that they have not had enough sunshine, been grown in bad soil, and been reared too quickly. Check the Brix standards and FAO requirements for some different fruits and vegetables in the table below, and maybe after that you'll be ready to jump over to today's post on Smart Stuff, where we've found a couple of affordable refractometers.

Fruit/vegetable (Brix)	Excellent	Good	Average	Poor	FAO req.
Cucumber	13	8	4	2	n/a
Carrot	18	12	6	4	8.0
Paprika	12	8	6	4	n/a
Tomato	12	8	6	4	5.0
Orange	20	16	10	6	11.0
Apple	18	14	10	6	11.5

The fact that food is being robbed of its nutritional content is not to be taken lightly, and may be one major factor behind the worldwide obesity epidemic, that sometimes leaves people both obese and malnutritioned at the same time, which a one time was a contradiction in terms, but now is becoming reality. You may want to check my earlier post on Eric Schlosser's new book "Chew On This" on the fast food industry, and the post I wrote on Plain Crazy on car seats for obese children.

26 July 2006

I'm back. And I'm not happy.
I was planning to stay off the air until the end of the month, but a story in yesterday's paper (see next post) was so disturbing I had to write about it. I hate it when they f*ck me in the store; when I pay good money for what is supposed to be top produce, and it turns out they sell me sh*t instead. Read the next post and you'll see...

26 July 2006

Gone to look for trouble...
Just kidding. I'm off up country to get some serious chill time. But they have TV and radio and papers there, too, so there will be plenty to get upset about. I'll be back in the first of July with a new juicy lemon for your enjoyment... Love /Ed.

20 June 2006

General Motors and its not so glorious past.
During a stay in Los Angeles a couple of years back, friends in Manhattan Beach told us a story of the train that used to run along the beach. It seems that the walk- and bike path along the beach was built on top of the old train tracks that ran all the way to Long Beach. They also said that they were under the impression that apparently the American automotive industry had a hand in it's disappearance, allegedly buying train companies and shutting them down to boost their car and bus business; and at the same time laying the groundwork for L.A.s pollution problem. Today I happened upon the story below posted by Kate of Vancouver, BC, on Now Public:

"Beginning in the 1920s, General Motors began investing in mass transit systems. According to historian Marty Jezer (and Congressional hearings held in 1974), between 1920 and 1955, General Motors bought up more than 100 electric mass transit systems in 45 cities, allowed them to deteriorate, and then replaced them with rubber-tired, diesel-powered buses (...) In 1949, General Motors, Firestone Rubber, and Standard Oil of California were convicted by a federal jury of criminally conspiring to replace electric mass transit with GM-manufactured diesel buses. In a noteworthy illustration of justice for corporations, the court fined GM USD 5,000 and forced H.C. Crossman, the GM executive responsible for carrying out GM's policy, to pay USD 1:-. Cities where GM managed to eliminate electric/rail systems, and replace them with buses and private cars, included New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Oakland, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles.

Many people think of Los Angeles as the original automobile city. However, before GM converted the city to buses and private automobiles, Los Angeles was served by the largest electric/rail mass transit system in the United States. The Pacific Electric Railway ran more than 1,000 trains per day over 760 miles of rail lines, carrying light freight as well as passengers. Its last line, to Long Beach, was abandoned in 1961 - the same year the ingredients of smog were first identified in L.A.'s toxic air.

During this same period, GM worked to convert electric-powered commuter railroads to diesel-powered locomotives, which were far more expensive, more complex, and less reliable than electric locomotives, thus requiring more maintenance, and contributing significantly to the demise of the nation's railroad system. For example, the New York, New Haven, and Hartford line showed a profit during 50 years of operation until 1956, the year it began converting to diesel locomotives; by 1961 it was declared bankrupt and a report by the Interstate Commerce Commission censured GM for contributing to its demise."

6 June 2006

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