No idea about those peaches specifically but wrapping vegetables in plastic generally reduces the environmental impact since it prevents them from spoiling.
> But research shows that a wrapped cucumber lasts more than three times as long as an unwrapped one. It will also lose just 1.5 per cent of its weight through evaporation after 14 days, compared with 3.5 per cent in just three days for an exposed cucumber.
A longer life, Aldridge writes, means less frequent deliveries, with all their consequent energy costs, and, crucially, less waste. Globally, we throw out as much as 50 per cent of food, often when it perishes. It typically goes to landfill and gives off methane, a greenhouse gas.
It may reduce the environmental impact by preventing spoiling, but at the same time it increases the environmental impact because now the vegetable can (and are) shipped across vast distances.
Maybe we should be rethinking our entire food infrastructure and concentrate on delivering food to local markets, not markets 1000s of miles away.
Apparently (can't find a source) but it is actually better for the environment to ship stuff around in certain circumstances. E.g. apparently it is lower carbon to ship tomatoes to the UK from Spain than it is to grow them locally in the UK (due to the energy needed to grow them in the UK).
I know the inevitable kneejerk response that this will trigger: "people in the UK should not eat tomatoes". I don't think it is realistic to start insisting that people stop eating fruit and vegetables that have been a cheap and plentiful part of everyday life for the past couple of generations.
Perhaps it makes sense to do so (indeed perhaps we need to do so), but good luck trying to get people to agree to only eating what they can grow in their immediate 5-10 mile radius without artificial heating/cooling/lighting/watering/ventilation/fertiliser/etc (and only in season too!). I suspect it will just be too big an ask for huge swathes of the population to give up staple foods that our societies have been based on for several generations while container ships each generating the same amount of pollution as 50,000,000 cars (1) are still shipping in cheap rat from china
We don't need to go back to the stone age - instead I think we need to tackle the big polluters (eg. Container ships, home heating in the UK, diesel in cities, coal etc etc)
It feels like in Germany they are somewhat "hip" only in the last 5 years or so. Barely heard anybody talking or eating some before, but nowadays they are quite popular.
