Clive Blazey asks why supermarket strawberries are such a fraud

A recent survey by Choice magazine on pesticide residues in strawberries has confirmed my view that supermarket strawberries should be avoided at all costs.
Supermarket strawberries have the highest levels of pesticides compared to any other fruit. Although these levels are regarded as being within acceptable levels by health authorities, they ignore the multiplier effects of a cocktail of pesticide applications. In Choice’s survey only 22% of growers had fruit with only one pesticide, while 63% of growers had multiple residues and 15% had a cocktail of four or more. Choice detected 150 different pesticides from 27 growers.
The so called acceptable limits are based on the amount of pesticides consumed compared to the body weight of an average person. There are no warnings for children. Some of the pesticides used by growers are called systemics, which means they enter the sap stream and can’t be washed off, turning the strawberry fruit into pesticide bombs. If your child is say one fifth of your body weight then the amount of pesticide consumed is five times as concentrated. If the strawberry your child is eating is one of those stacked with four pesticides, then you may be feeding your child with a dosage level 20 times over what our authorities said was safe!

You might be wondering why the supermarket strawberry, which looks so tempting is such a fraud. The modern supermarket strawberry has been manipulated in its breeding. Supermarkets have forced breeders to do the impossible. The strawberries must be huge size to save on picking costs. It must have firm shoulders so it can travel thousands of kilometres from out of season farms in Queensland or Western Australia to meet Melbourne or Sydney’s demand in early spring or late autumn. It must have a shelf life of seven days not two, so it is picked unripe when sugar levels and flavour have not developed, eliminating any aroma. Grown on mega-sized strawberry farms with hundreds of thousands of plants to attack it’s an ‘all you can eat’ smorgasbord for insects, which is why they need so many sprays.

I gave up buying supermarket strawberries in disgust after visiting Phil Rowe’s organic berry farm three years ago. When we visited, the aroma of wild strawberries filled the valley. The rapturous scent was from Cambridge Rival which has since consistently won all of our taste tests with 90% ratings compared with 25% for supermarket strains. Yet it was about to be dropped by its propagator such was the buying power of our supermarkets.
So can we go back and enjoy the delectable taste of strawberries again? You can buy organic strawberries from farmers’ markets or dedicated organic shops. They will be free of pesticides and being locally grown, will be ripe and tasty; or grow your own organically so you can pick them when they are ripe and ready.
Be sure to seek out the best tasting varieties which, from our taste tests, were:

The growers for the supermarkets tell me the supermarkets refuse to label named varieties because when they offer good tasting strawberries that customers prefer, the typical supermarket varieties don’t sell and have to be thrown out!

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