I long for a simpler time. A happier time, a time when

[HoneyDragon]

They didn't feel the need to shrink wrap cucumbers

Remember those hazy, happy days gone by, where cucumbers frolicked freely in the vegetable aisle and we didn't die from toxic cucumber contamination? I do. I miss them

AIBU?

Am I ?

YANBU. Those were good times, it's true.

I sent DS3 off to find cucumbers in Sainsburys yesterday and he came back with courgettes.
a) I had never realised quite how similar they were and b) the courgettes were not shrink-wrapped, despite the spooky similarity.

Has there been an outbreak of food poisoning?

And the shrink wrap is annoying...I've always thought it was to prolong shelf life. Is that correct?

My ds insists that courgettes are rubber cucumbers. Perhaps the rubberises negates shrink wrap?

They don't shrink wrap them in the cheap supermarkets. And I bought a cucumber yesterday that was short and fat, as opposed to the long, skinny models usually available.

Or maybe you could go totally posh and try a farmers' market? They'd have naice ham too! :)

When was the last time you saw a hairy courgette? That's a mistake you could never have made in the old days Hassled, they were so prickley that you had to put them in a bag to spare your hands, then wash them carefully to clean all the trapped grit out the hairs.

If you buy half a cucumber, they come in a plastic wrapper and inside that theres shrink wrap!!

Courgettes were hairy? I don't think I can have been exposed to many courgettes in my youth.

Apparently you're suppose to eat the peel of the cucumber and so they wrap it to preserve the peel.

Except I always peel my cucumbers as I hate the peel.

Wankers.

That's a good point about courgettes, BTW.

I do buy most of my veg locally. But sometimes you get caught short in the cucumber department, then your stuck with plastic bastard.

What can possibly happen to cucumber skin that the wrap can prevent?

And also what's this new evil where you buy juice with a screw top, then it has a little plastic ring pull inside? It's worthy of the Krypton factor. Why?

Shrink wrapping cucumbers actually prolongs their life and means that they can be stored for longer and need less transporting around - I heard a really interesting piece on the radio about it which made me re-think my previous stance on the wastefulness of it all. My local grocer does massive, long, fat beasts of cucumbers without shrinkwrap though, and weeny little wiggly ones all of which have the lovely sweet seeds inside too, so I can't claim to have been completely converted. And the bloody things are too hard to get into when they've got plastic from nubbin to nob end, so I have to think of the environmental benefits to stop me swearing at them anyway...

I remember when we had proper grocers shops.

With those big wooden drawers and the whole shop would smell of cheese and stuff.
My mum and MIL insist on transferring potatoes and carrots into paper bags because plastic Is A Bad Thing.

YANBU. I long for the days when my lovely Grandad would pick a cucumber for me from his greenhouse and I would take it home and mum would use it in a salad.

Those cucumbers actually tasted of something. They were sweet and juicy not like the hard sour tasteless ones we get now.

I always feel faintly filthy peeling back the shrink wrap from the cucumber shaft. Have to make sure no ones watching.

You need to go to the Coop - they have naked cucumbers!

Lol at "from nubbin to nob-end"!

When you unscrew the lid of a new tube of toothpaste....and there's a stupid little foil seal over the top of the tube that you need three goes to get off. Aarg. Just aarg.

There are lots of veg where you eat the bit that is exposed to the air and yet they are not vacuum packed. You can rinse them under the tap.

I expect the toothpaste is to stop terrorists injecting poison into them.

Like those stories where people have put broken glass in jam or summat.

Tomato ketchup and other sauce bottles.
Where you have to unscrew the cap off before first use, because there's this impenetrable disc made of something NASA discovered. But don't worry! Because they put three handy 'pull tabs' on there, to aid removal.

Only the tabs are precisely two millimetres long. Nowhere near long enough to gain any purchase. So you have to scratch and scrape, whilst your sausage sandwich goes cold, for a squeeze of goddamn SAUCE.

It's worth it just in case you are the unlucky one to pick up the cucumber that a bored shop worker/farmer stuck up their arse.

Good point, the vacuum packing will stop you contracting any cucumber diseases in your fanjita and you becoming an urban myth.

LoSienta

You are assuming they only insert cucumbers after they have been wrapped?

Or does good cucumber hygiene entail you eat them with the plastic wrapping still on?

And yy to the fucking silver sauce seal. Bastards.

I always moan about having to remove the condom from the cucumber. Then I look up and see a small child giggle (DDs have had a fair idea what confirms are since they were very small )

The stupid plastic is doubly annoying as I hate cucumber.