If you have ever won­dered what those four or five digit num­bers on fruits and veg­eta­bles are for you are not alone. They actu­ally do serve a higher pur­pose beyond dri­ving busy cashiers every­where mad. Those num­bers can tell you a great num­ber of things about your favorite golden deli­cious or zuc­chini squash. Things you really should know.

Most impor­tantly these num­bers can tell us one of three things. They can tell us if our pro­duce is:

Con­ven­tion­ally Grown – This means that one or more of the fol­low­ing may have been used:

  • Syn­thetic pesticides
  • Fer­til­iz­ers made with syn­thetic ingre­di­ents or sewage sludge
  • Syn­thetic herbicides
  • Antibi­otics
  • Bio­engi­neer­ing
  • Added hor­mones
  • Ion­iz­ing radiation

Organ­i­cally Grown — This means that the pro­duce is one that was grown with­out the above listed items for con­ven­tion­ally grown produce.

Accord­ing to United States Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture (USDA) “organic food is pro­duced by farm­ers who empha­size the use of renew­able resources and the con­ser­va­tion of soil and water to enhance envi­ron­men­tal qual­ity for future generations.”

(GMO) — Genet­i­cally Mod­i­fied Organ­ism – This means that the pro­duce has had spe­cific changes intro­duced into its DNA by genetic engi­neer­ing. con­tinue reading…