DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Seen in Open Exchange magazine: sekrit decoder logic for produce stickers.

Those annoying little produce stickers have a special purpose other than pricing at the checkout line. Want to avoid genetically modified fruits and vegetables? Don’t purchase any with stickers containing five digits starting with an 8. Want to know if your produce is organic, grown without the use of pesticides or synthetic fertilizers? Look for stickers with five digits starting with a 9. If the sticker has four digits it simply means that the food was commercially grown, neither organic nor genetically modified.

So, those stickers — which are annoying as hell — actually serve a purpose. I ransacked the fruit bowl for examples: lemon, mango, apple.

I found that our avocados are “conventional.” See the 4-digit code at right.

I couldn’t find any genetically modified produce. I’m sure we buy it sometimes, and it probably looks nicer than the organic stuff, which is often smaller and bears visible imperfections. But hey, at least the organics cost twice as much!