OT: bananas

All sorts of stuff showing up on Twitter now. Frick zample, there was this today, supposedly a letter to the Absurder from a Mr Bryan Smalley, presumably in reply to another:

Tim Adam's comment that there is no EU Directive stating that bananas "must be straight" is technically correct but Directive 2257/94 states that it is a criminal offence to sell bananas of "abnormal curvature". Similarly, EU Directive 1677/88 refers to the curvature of cucumbers. There are other Directives on fruit and vegetables.

For example, peaches must not be less that 5.6 cm in diameter between July and October; Class 1 Victoria plums must measure at least 3.5 cm across; carrots that are less than 1.9 cm wide at the thick end are not allowed, except in baby varieties.

Many edible products are likely to be discarded because they fail to meet EU standards which are mostly unnecessary.

For this we pay £350M a week.

Reply to
Tim Streater
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Don't worry about the relative minutia, worry about your vote being diluted 10 > 1 once it becomes the USE, which it will have to, to give the Euro any chance. It's funny that so many countries fought so hard for their independence and we're just giving ours away!

Reply to
Andy Cap

Er, we don't, but anyway... A quick google shows that letter dates from 2007. Directive 2257/94 was repealed in 2011.

I'm here all week folks.

Reply to
Tim Hodgson

And even more purely on the insistence of the supermarkets. So I hope you'll not be using any of those again.

Oh - edible products which don't meet EU standards in terms of size and shape for retail sales can still be used commercially.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Which suggests measures must be taken to ensure the fruits are just as the directive says. Which means, controlled growth with the use of teh chemicals form those who know best how to do it.

How big or, small, should wholesome nutrition be?

Reply to
RayL12

And so the myths continue. It's an amusing feature of human nature that the more they're shown to be myths, the more people believe them. See also WMDs in Iraq post-takeover - several years later, more people believed there were WMDs than before, even though they'd not found any. The EU myths will carry on in the same vein.

Reply to
Clive George

I do know that certain deformed fruit and veg can mean that there has been some kind of pollution or desease in the crop, so do not be too ready to condemn these things. In many cases as long as the produce is safe, it is used in other foods as ingredients. IE not thrown away.

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

There have been standards for *ware* suitability set by the UK which long precede the EU.

Potato marketing board, Milk marketing board, egg marketing board for 3. Probably dating from WW2. Don't ask me for more examples but there used to be a minimum size before a potato could be sold as human food....

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Reply to
Tim Lamb

A Directive that has now been rescinded and that never applied to all bananas. Extra Class bananas had to comply to the letter. Class 1 bananas were permitted slight defects, while Class 2 bananas had no restrictions on shape.

Again, varying according to the class. Extra and Class 1 had to curve no more than 10mm in 10cm of length. Class II could curve 20mm in 10cm, while Class 3 could be as curved as you liked.

So, neither actually banned anything. They simply used curvature as one of the criteria for deciding which class bananas and cucumbers fell into.

Again, grading rules and, in introducing these standards, the EU actually reduced the number of regulations for specific fruit and vegetables from 36 to 10.

Also a grading standard and now rescinded.

A myth. They simply fall (or fell) into a different class.

The gross contribution is currently £361m / week. However, after deducting rebates and receipts, the net amount is £161m / week, or about

0.4% of GDP, compared to the CBI's estimate that the benefit of membership is around 4-5% of GDP.
Reply to
Nightjar

Come off it! How dare you bring facts into this debate.

Reply to
GB

Quite. But let's just blame the EU for everything. And willing to bet those who complain about such standards would pick the best looking fruit and veg in a supermarket anyway.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Love to know what you mean by 'we'. The goverment does the choosing, not the people. Perhaps they might choose to spend it all on solar panels.

Well, you've chosen to quote the gross amount, rather than net. If that gross sum is available for things which the EU don't currently subsidise, food prices will have to be raised dramatically. UK farmers receive a large sum via the CAP.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Ha, ha, yes, they might at that.

Reply to
Tim Streater

Unfortuately that's hopelessly wrong as usual. Some is certainly used, but a vast amount gets dumped.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

In message , snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com writes

Generally discarded on *appearance* grounds on farm. Usually taken to mean the buyer has more than enough from elsewhere.

Sprouts, carrots, cauliflower's etc. can be re-routed to outlets such as market stalls if the product has a reasonable harvested life.

Reply to
Tim Lamb

Did you see... sorry did you hear the paxman program on TV last night regarding the EU. It's be really nice to nail this banana bending thing down once and for all.

And was it true that the EU spent 4 years on deciding what chocolate was and how has that chaged what chocolate is in 2016 ?

Reply to
whisky-dave

Nothing new in an excess of fresh produce getting dumped. And nothing to do with the EU - except in the old days of wine lakes and butter mountains. Which of course don't happen today. So much for the EU not being willing to change where needed.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

I've seen 10 ton piles of huge carrots and parsnips outside the local stables, even helped myself to some (with permission).

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

That's not how some my friends do it, they go to the stalls outside the supermarket where the fruit might not look as good but it's less than half the price and tastes better too. Being vegitarians they are more fussy about fruit and veg than me. Which is a spity considering my grandfather was 'in' fruit and veg in covent garden during WWII.

Reply to
whisky-dave

Yup. Remember the fury from the Mail readers when the EU pointed out that much of the chocolate on sale in the UK didn't actually contain chocolate. And UK pork sausages didn't contain pork. ;-)

It's a basic principle of freedom and sovereignty in the UK that big business should be allowed to sell anything and call it what they want. Even E numbers.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

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