Why You Should Not Grow Food From Grocery Store Produce

You’ve likely seen them. The colourful, cheery hack videos showing how you can sprout, regrow or collect seeds from grocery store produce. It seems like an “Aha!” moment for many parents looking to get their kids into gardening while saving some money.

Here is why I recommend you avoid this trend.

Before I rain on your parade, if you’re just looking for a fun activity, there’s little harm in any of this. Enjoy yourself and the process! But if you are hoping to grow food for eating, this is my opinion on the topic. If you get your produce from Local Farmers Markets, much of this won’t apply.

Why You Shouldn’t Grow Food From Grocery Store Produce:

1. Produce Traits

   Commercially-farmed crop varieties are selected/bred/engineered to stand up to harvesting machinery and shipping. Produce is expected to have a consistent appearance (shape, colour) in order to be marketable. Size (large) is often prized.
   To obtain many of these values other factors are lost during the trait selection and cross breeding of varieties. Think about the flavours of a store bought tomato against ones grown from seed/seedling. Why would you want to replicate the thicker skin, and lackluster flavour?

2. Growing True

   If you are not familiar with this term, it refers to a seed growing into a plant that replicates the parent plant. Many of the fruits that we are familiar with are grafted and not grown from seed. This is done to replicate genetics for a consistent, marketable product but also to obtain fruit faster (plants started from seed take many years to begin bearing fruit where a graft is much sooner). Depending on the plant, when grown from seed, it may not live up to your hopes.

3. Nutrient Profile

   Big Agriculture is dependent on a cycle of tillage and supplementing. The soil they farm is “dead”. This means the nutritional content of food also takes a hit. Not all tomatoes (this is often the prized crop for home gardens) are created equal. Soil health translates into stronger, more resilient plants and more nutritionally dense crops. All of that gets imprinted into the seed for the following year. For a list of locally grown seed suppliers click here.

4. Hardiness

   Much of our produce is imported. Sourcing local seed means the plants are more acclimated to our local conditions then something from Peru. This means, when you source local to Southern Ontario seed, you have a better chance at hardier, more resilient crops. Certain imported crops, like Garlic, won’t be hardy in our climate. Many seed varieties available to our market reflect traits that do well against our pests and climatic conditions.

5. Pesticides

   No washing method is 100% effective for removing all pesticide residues and if your produce was grown using systematic pesticides, no amount of washing will remove those as they are taken up by the roots and embedded within the entire plant including it’s fruit. Odds are, since you already have the produce, this isn’t a top concern but I include this point in case it is new information for you.

   You can opt for organic produce but they still use pesticides, just of ‘natural’ origin. Unless you are chatting with the farm it’s impossible to know what was used and why. Concerns have been raised about non-organic pesticide residues being found on organic produce. The thought is that the transfer occurs during harvesting, processing and transporting as well as residue in the soil or water. Since you’ve put energy into a better (and more costly) selection this may be frustrating news.

6. Transfer of Disease

   It may not be something you’ve considered before, but many small actions in gardening hold larger, ripple-like effects. Potatoes should not be regrown from store bought stock. The Ontario Ministry of Food and Agriculture (OMAFRA) states that “Late blight is a community disease. Once the disease starts, it may be spread long distances by wind affecting many farms and many fields. A coordinated approach to disease control is best… potatoes growing in home gardens may be sources of late blight. ” Late blight is the same disease that caused the great famine in the 1800’s.

Can you grow from store bought produce? Yes! Whether you should grow food from store bought scraps will come down to your stance on food quality. Growing your own food from seed, even if it is just a few of your favourites, can provide the experiences as a family you are after and with superior flavour, health and nutritional value.

An easy way to get started with growing your own is through Winter Sowing.