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Farm fresh eggs can’t be beat

“A hen’s egg is quite simply, a work of art, a masterpiece of design and construction with, it has to be said, brilliant packaging.” ­– Delia Smith, British television chef.

The eggshell, protective and biodegradable, would be the perfect package if there was an easy way to mark it with the words “farm fresh.” The word so often used in association with food, the intended definition of fresh as, not known, used or different, has become ambiguous. Each year is an adventure of rediscovering and reminding ourselves the difference in the meaning of fresh, between the grocery shelf and the local farmers’ markets.

“Less space in the chip bag!” — Ethan Purol, 10th grader, Posen.

When asked about how the world could be made better, most Students of the Week featured in the Alpena News responded with serious concerns about the environment, poverty, and prejudice. The young man from the community known for its potato festival, identified by example the manipulation of the food we eat, by transforming raw materials of biological origin into edible form. Food engineering, an academic discipline since the 1950s, has redefined fresh through processing, packaging, and delivery of food. Food engineers are responsible for every part of the added value of Solanum tuberosum, the potato.

Intrinsically, food engineering is good, providing safe, palatable food that will be edible over a span of time. The military has played an important role in the research of preservation of food, Anastacia Marx de Salcedo, author of “Combat-Ready Kitchen: How the U.S. Military Shapes the Way You Eat,” she writes, “everything in my kids’ lunchboxes was engineered by the military — bread, deli meats, cheesy crackers, and juice pouches.” By her estimate, 50% of the items in a grocery store are there by the application of military research.

The federal government is a major player in the nation’s food supply. The United States Department of Agriculture monitors farm production of produce and livestock. The Federal Drug Administration sets standards for grocery items, content, and labeling. The adjectives used to describe food, natural and fresh, have been defined to accommodate industry, and the informed consumer should be aware of that. The Code of Federal Regulation is a reference source for federal administrative agencies.

To be labeled natural, there are to be no additives for coloring, flavor, or other synthetic substances, not addressed in the definition are food processing methods of thermal technologies, pasteurization, or radiation. Similarly, the term “fresh” by FDA standards permits post-harvest application of washing, coatings, and pesticides to facilitate shipping and storage. Leafy greens that are fragile and susceptible to bacterial growth, are refrigerated, washed several times, and treated with a gaseous mixture of oxygen, and nitrogen, and carbon dioxide in a process called modified atmospheric packaging.

At the farmers’ markets of Northeast Michigan, the fruit and vegetables themselves attest to freshness with vivid color, size, shape indicating “vine ripened” maturity. The vendor whose hands will make your change, likely sowed the seed, and harvested the crop, will vouch that it is farm fresh!

“The new pattern of eating is a series of solitary snacks that we hardly notice or enjoy as they pass through our gullet.” — Bea Wilson, British food writer.

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