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Without a doubt, we've all had to peel one of those annoying stickers off a piece of produce. You know the ones; they have 4 or 5 digits and seem almost meaningless. Have you ever wondered what those digits mean? I did, and so I found out.
As it turns out, the numbers on produce stickers (called Produce Look-Up codes, or PLU for short) can tell a lot about the particular produce item. A PLU not only identifies a type of produce, but also contains information about the size of the item and how it was grown.
Is this useful information? You bet!
There are 3 different general numbering patterns that PLUs follow. 4-digit numbers are for conventionally grown produce, meaning that they have likely been exposed to a certain chemical load due to modern growing techniques.
Items with 5-digit PLUs are special, and this is where you should really pay attention. If an item has a 5-digit code that begins with an 8, it means that the item is a genetically modified food. A 5-digit code beginning with a 9 means that the item was organically grown.
Now that's useful information.
I think that watching for that leading 8 is a very good idea. Organic food is usually easy to spot because grocers are so eager to advertise it as such. The same is not true of genetically modified produce. I've never seen a sign in a grocery store indicating that a produce item was genetically modified.
So there you have it. Look out for the 5 digit codes, avoid the 8 and go with the 9.
Stumble It!
