The other day I was flipping through a family-oriented magazine and came across something that astounded me. It was an advertisement for Chiquita Apple Bites Singles. These are “fresh, crisp apples: washed, sliced and ready to eat; only 30 calories per serving; individually packaged in stay fresh pouches.”

Individually packaged in stay fresh pouches??? Nature already has the perfect “stay-fresh pouch” — it’s called a peel. This is taking something that makes sense, i.e. eating whole, unprocessed food, and turning it on it’s head, i.e. wrapping it in a wasteful, unnecessary package. It may be good for Chiquita’s bottom line, but not for the environment and, I would argue, not even good for families. 

Believe me, I know how busy we parents are and I understand the allure of a healthy snack made incredibly convenient. But buying into that misses the whole point. Eating healthy isn’t easy. Food preparation is inextricably linked to eating healthy. When we take time to prepare food, we are less likely to scarf it down, more likely to savor the taste, more likely to feel satisfied by what we eat and less likely to overeat. Anyone unwilling to take the time to even slice an apple simply isn’t going to get there. And not to mention the waste. I’m not going to say I’ve never fallen prey to convenience foods. But if we don’t teach our kids that we don’t live in a disposable world who will? There are so many ways to do this that are really not that hard. Using reusable bags and providing snacks and lunches in reusable containers are just a couple of small things that can make a huge difference when multiplied over our lifetimes. And eat your apples the old-fashioned way!

Tags: Chiquita bites, Environment, Nutrition

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 9:50 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.