Teaching them to eat ugly

This is a photo of a deliciously crisp and juicy apple given to me by a friend (thanks, Amelia, these were FABULOUS!) who first offered this: It's organic, from a friend's farm, and although it doesn't look that great it tastes really good. 

True, nature isn't always picture-perfect.

My husband and I visited Costa Rica several years ago. A local told us that in times of heavy rain, plastic bags that were put over each of the thousands of banana bunches growing on the banana plantations would fall from the trees and litter the landscape, ultimately washing into the ocean. We half expected to see plastic bags where we were diving. Either there hadn't been heavy rains recently, or the problem wasn't so bad. Not sure, but I've thought about the use of those bags a lot since then.

Other than a few items, I'm not typically too concerned about whether my food is organic or not. However, it always gives me pause when I see perfect and unblemished bananas in the produce aisle. According to our Costa-contact, the plastic bags they put over the banana bunches makes them sell better in the US market because they're unblemished. It doesn't impact the quality of the fruit for better or worse.

So I try to encourage my kids to be open to eating "ugly food." It's not what it looks like, it's what it tastes like that counts! The apple you see here was sheer perfection.