The True Cost of Our Avocados

Every day, three million new pictures of avocados are posted on Instagram. In 2016, five million avocados passed through the kitchens of Pret A Manger, an international sandwich shop chain based in the UK. In China, 33 shipping containers of avocados are delivered weekly onto its shores. Delicious, healthy and fashionable, avocados are big business. However, behind the superfood lies a long-term crisis: 【小题1】

The problem is created by the fact that Mexican farmers now consider it more profitable to grow avocados than any other crop. In Michoacan, the state that produces most of the country’s avocados, growers are ignoring the law and thinning out mature pine(松树) forest to plant young avocado trees instead.

But what is so bad about changing one type of tree to another? Permanent forest does not need to be sprayed with fertilizers and pesticides. 【小题2】Avocado plantations, however, need repeated cycles of chemical inputs. They also drink up irrigation(灌溉)water, putting pressure on local water reserves. By one estimate, it takes up to 272 liters of water to grow about two or three medium-sized avocados. The thirsty fruit is not just testing water levels in Mexico. In California, avocados now compete with almonds(扁桃仁) as the top water-guzzling crop.

【小题3】Not really. This profitable trade is increasingly controlled by a local drug cartel(贩毒集团). That means when you buy a Mexican avocado, a greedy share of income may well go to criminals.

You might think, “I’ll buy avocados from some other less problematic source then.” But would an avocado from Chile, Peru or the Dominican Republic be more sustainable? Actually, we know pitifully little about the environmental and working conditions of faceless people in faraway places who grow fruit for our tables. 【小题4】It is a powerful reason for refusing to fixate on(迷恋) them.

Nutritionally speaking, what has an avocado got that you cannot get elsewhere anyway? If you’re buying it for vitamin E, sunflower seeds are a richer source. If you’re hunting down vitamin K, you’ll find lots in broccoli and cabbage. For unsaturated fat(不饱和脂肪), turn your attention to olives and lamb. Kale can even make all-round sense.

If you have to pick up a fashionable import like avocado, please make sure that it not only benefits our personal health and well-being, but also that of the communities which grow it.

Wheat and corn are used to make bread, pizza and other delicious foods, but in a few years they could also power your car. Renewable biofuels could soon replace the harmful fossil fuels that we’re used to using. It’s now well established that fossil fuels are incredibly harmful to our health and the environment and they’re not renewable, either. When so many people rely on petrol and diesel (柴油) to power vehicles, it makes sense to develop a renewable alternative that’s easy to use.

That’s where biofuel comes in. The most common biofuel produced globally is ethanol (乙醇), and it’s used frequently in Brazil and the US, while biodiesel is more popular in Europe. However, first-generation biofuels like ethanol have got issues that need fixing before they can go mainstream. It curently takes more ethanol than gasoline to produce the same amount of energy, for instance. Production is expensive, and several parts of the process sometimes use fossil fuels, which means that some biofuels aren’t actually carbon-free.

Some environmental campaigners also say that it would be more useful to grow crops for food rather than biofuel, and that growing crops for biofuel can cause problems with soil loss and deforestation. Using land for fuel rather than food can lead to an increase in food prices, too, and can affect natural habitats.

Crop and fat-based biofunels may not be perfect, but those aren’t the only biofuels available. Some organisations are creating biofuels with algae (海藻) instead. This process uses water and land that often isn’t suitable for many other situations, so it doesn’t take up space that’s useful for food production, and it often has better yields (产量) than other types of biofuel components.

There’s plenty of development beyond algae, too. Some companies even use seaweed. Scientists are also working on plans that will be able to abstract biofuels from household waste, wood chips and other junk — a move that could massively increase the material that’s viable for biofuel production. These second-generation biofuels could make biofuel far cheaper and more accessible, and help cut emissions down.

France has changed the rules in its grocery stores and marketplaces. Starting on January 1, 2022, most fresh fruits and vegetables can no longer be packaged for salern plastic.

Under the new law, more than 30 types of fruits and vegetables must now be sold in materials that can be recycled. Potatoes, tomatoes, apples and carrots are some of the items included in the list. Plastic will still be allowed for packs that are over 1.5 kilograms. Smaller items such as raspberries and cherry tomatoes can still be sold in plastic for now, but the country plans to ban (禁止) all single-use plastic packaging for whole fruits and vegetables by 2026.

This ban on plastic packaging is part of a broader effort by France to control plastic waste across a range of sectors. Other efforts include preventing restaurants from including plastic toys in children’s meals, newspapers and magazines from being delivered in plastic, and tea bags being sold in plastic packages. Furthermore, public locations must provide water refill stations to disincentivize the use of single-use water bottles.

It’s believed that 37% of fresh fruits and vegetables are wrapped in plastic in France. The government says the new ban will stop one billion pieces of plastic from being used each year.

Not everyone is happy with the change. François Roch, president of the French fruit sellers’ federation, told Reuters, “Selling loose produce is complicated (复杂的) as many customers touch the fruit and people do not want their fruit to be touched by other customers.”

The ban will likely require a change in habits Shoppers will probably have to take their own reusable bags to fill and weigh. It will be interesting to see how France deals with the complications that come with selling loose produce, and whether other countries follow suit, once a precedent (先例) has been set.