School children chose organic but spotty apples freshly picked from the school orchard rather than shiny shop bought fruit on offer.
There have been more and more research evidence to demonstrate that organic fruit and vegetables have more goodness in them than conventionally farmed supermarket sold items. A look at www.ofa.au will give a plethora of information.
However, I saw something that persuaded me. It is not scientific and perhaps it could not be repeated but this is what happened.
Each morning tea break at the school the kitchen staff put out a couple of plastic washing baskets with fruit. Typically, there was one of apples and one of oranges. The fruit was good-looking standard commercial apple and oranges.
One morning a few boys and I went down to our orchard of apple trees. These were very young trees and we picked about a washing basket full and took them up to the school where I left them outside the kitchen door. I was thinking how to persuade the cook into using them fro apple pies for the school (quite a bit of trouble as usually, I guess, the fruit cam from a caterer’s can).
The apples were not perfect. Even a bit spotty and grotty. They were of different sizes and had a slight smattering of a grey mildew over the surface. This could be rubbed off easily and the apples brought up to a shine. Perhaps I thought I should wash and polish them to make them attractive to the boys.
While I sat thinking, the bell went and the boys wandered out from class. The first boy went up to the shop apples but then saw the new picked apples and took one of them. Every boy, and they came in ones and twos, dribs and drabs, walked past the shiny splendid shop apples and took a school grown one.
No one had announced that these were in any way special or the first of the crop. The boys eight years to twelve years old self selected the more delicious and I believe more nutritious piece of fruit.
