Cucumbers without packaging look fresh, according to the weekly market and sustainability. But are they better than welded ones? It's not that easy to decide.
It is no longer news that plastic waste pollutes our environment and should be avoided under all circumstances. If we should no longer buy plastic bags, then unwrapped vegetables would have to be better than shrink-wrapped ones. However, this does not always apply.
In some cases, buy cucumbers better sealed
As Nils Rettenmaier, an expert in nutrition and biomass at the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Heidelberg, explains in an interview with the editorial team, the benefits of plastic packaging for cucumbers are in some cases more important than the environmental damage : "For [cucumbers], a plastic casing mainly fulfills the purpose of reducing transport damage and thus food losses. An Austrian study assumes that the losses in the trade in shrink-wrapped cucumbers are half less, which is more important in the ecological balance than the plastic casing. " So if the cucumber is imported or otherwise has to travel long distances, it is fully justified that it is sealed.
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Shrink-wrapped cucumbers: Longer shelf life justifies the plastic casing
Both unwrapped and shrink-wrapped cucumbers produce emissions during their production, leaving a so-called CO2 footprint. In this case, the cucumbers protected by foil are more durable, so they end up less in the trash. In the case of imported cucumbers, this makes them more sustainable than unpackaged cucumbers .
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More important than paying attention to the plastic packaging, according to Rettenmaier, is to avoid long transport routes, difficult production conditions or storage costs . In summer, regionally grown, unpackaged cucumbers are always the best choice. In winter, however, it may make more sense to buy packaged cucumbers from Egypt or Spain than to grab unpackaged ones from Germany. In this country, they have to be grown in heated greenhouses that have high emission values. Regional is not always good, but only if you also pay attention to the seasonality.
Also read: Do you peel cucumbers? For this reason, you should stop doing this from now on.
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