What’s Apeel Made Of?

This is my latest Apeel update – you can watch the video instead, here, if you prefer!

As I learn more about what the history is of the Apeel Sciences company, trying to find out if they’re growing; how much of our produce actually has this stuff on it; also:

Why do they keep changing their filings with the government? Why does the founder say it’s “just plants protecting plants” when it’s pretty clearly some synthetic polymer or plastic type of product?

Does their product even work? Why did they start as one product and end up being something completely different? Why are they being allowed to spray their stuff on ORGANIC produce?

Today my big question is, what’s in it? And I’ll warn you that the answer is really unsatisfactory, but you should know about this.

So Apeel was registered with the EPA as a pesticide, but was ultimately designated as a fungicide. Don’t ask me to explain whether it’s a pesticide or a fungicide, because I don’t get it either.

But it’s approved as an organic product or at least to put on organic products, and it’s pretty clear that it’s in no way organic. One of the problems with the certified organic label is that it’s related only to how the food was GROWN.

After it’s grown organically, apparently the FDA is allowing a very non-organic product to be sprayed on organic produce. Which kind of defeats the purpose of banning most toxic products in the growing, if we’re just going to put them on the food later.

The Ingredients label of Apeel discloses what less than 1% of the product actually is. And just won’t tell us what the rest is.

The one ingredient they’ll disclose is that 2/3 of 1 percent of the product is citric acid. Probably they’re willing to disclose that part because people see “citric” and think of lemons and oranges.

It actually doesn’t come from citrus, though. Citric acid is a synthetic preservative, and it’s made in manufacturing facilities from black mold–even though a similar molecule of part of that product does exist in a citrus peel.

I assume that the reason James Rogers will disclose that the 2/3 of 1% of what’s in the product is “citric acid”—is that he probably thinks Americans will see citric acid and believe it’s something natural and non-toxic.

Anyway, the remaining 99.3% of whatever is in Apeel is not disclosed.

A year ago, they were telling us via email that grapeseed was an ingredient. Later, I heard James Rogers say that “any plant product will do, really.”

So maybe there’s some “greenwashing” going on? A pinch of something plant-based, and the rest is a synthetic coating to try to force produce to last forever in supply chains?

It seems that if it's the “plant-based material” that Apeel founder James Rogers said the product was made from, in an interview last year with Dr. Mark Hyman, that he’d be happy to disclose the contents of the product, or at LEAST the part that is natural and plant-based.

Fact is, from my research the last couple of years, I think that Apeel is not what it set out to be; the product doesn’t work; the company is struggling financially; and it’s made of synthetics, because if plant-based material protected plants, wouldn’t Nature already preserve produce in that way?

You might find an Apeel label on your produce. But you also might not, as it’s not required, and the company and those reselling Apeel-sprayed produce have gotten such pushback that some have even gone so far as to put a sticker over the Apeel label.

Because it’s such a turnoff to consumers. And so most produce using Apeel just isn’t marked any more.

That said, I don’t think the stuff is on very much of your produce, because I don’t think the company is doing well, not even first and foremost because of all the pushback from us, that’s probably a secondary reason–

–I think the primary reason is that Apeel just doesn’t work well. Apeel says that it has 50 partners (customer companies), and to give that context, there are thousands of produce companies in North America alone.

So since you can’t necessarily tell from the packaging, you’re going to need to talk to your grocers. Talk to whoever you meet wearing an apron in the Produce section, and definitely ask for the manager.

If the manager isn’t there, get his or her phone number and call them. And ask if they’re reselling produce that uses Apeel.

Keep in mind that who you’re talking to probably doesn’t know. So you want to follow up, and get an assurance from wherever you shop at, that they will be vigilant about not allowing produce that was grown organically to be sprayed with a product that won’t even disclose its preservative ingredients, which is a big red flag.

Thank you for all you do to speak up! I can’t do it by myself, so every time I get a message from one of you that you spoke to your grocer, I just want to hug you.

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