Open air market/Dried fruits

Every Friday to Sunday there is a week-end open air market in each part of Moscow. In my area we have one half-way to my mom's workplace and every Friday we buy groceries from one and the same stall with produce from the Oryol region. It is hard to find a farm in Russia that would know how to preserve well agricultural produce the whole winter (November-March) due to low technological level of their storage facilities. And I guess we are lucky to have found some contacts. Their prices are higher than the average prices on that local market, but we noticed we are not the only regular customers of theirs. Thus, good quality (and minimal giving light weight as opposed to the majority) does form loyalty =).
I know that by now apples from this part of the planet don't contain much nutritional value in general, but still it's something juicy and nice. Unfortunately, I noticed that I can eat only Russian, Ukrainian and Moldavian apples, not treated or treated much less than their "colleagues" from Poland (which used to be quite fine before Poland entered the EU), France, Holland, China (uff) or Latin America.
I got hooked on sunflower seeds. Since last week I've been really enjoying some 100 grams of big & tasty sunflower seeds from Uzbekistan a time, some 2-3 times a day. I am really happy we have such good economic relations at the level of vegetables, fruits, dried fruits, seeds and similar with the ex-Soviet republics of Central Asia. They are so poor that they don't treat their produce =) and thanks God the sanitation & epidemiological rules and standards for import to the Russian Federation are adequate, not exorbitant as in the EU.

Post-harvest fruit and vegetables treatments

Of course I knew about the waxed apples and washed carrots, but I was negatively surprised by what I have just learned. If you go to this website, you'll see some pictures of the cleaning process of tangerines. "Cleaning and pre-dryng is necessary before final waxing." And for cleaning special detergents are used...
Mamma mia. Waxes are "designed...to reduce the weight losses, heightening gloss, and prolonging effective shelf life". Yes, it's all about prolonging effective shelf life. With citrus it's not that bad. But if I want to bite an apple and eat it with the peel? I don't want to eat wax...
This is a good reason for me to avoid imported fruits and vegetables that have to be treated due to different sanitation zones and requirements. Unfortunately, even within the EU or even in Holland citrus or apples are treated.

Temperature and food today

36.8C in the evening.
1 l freshly squeezed orange juice, 1/2 galia melon, bananas, tangerines from Spain, oranges from Chile, walnuts from France, pecans from South Africa, almonds from Italy.

On the net with oranges it is said "fruit treated with wax authorized in the EU (imazalil tbz)". On the net with tangerines it is said "treated with ortophenilphenol, imazalil and natural wax". Hmm...

Open market day

Last Saturday I found a market stall with dried fruit including apricots. There were both standard and quite dark ones, as the naturally sun-dried apricots should be, and I bought a bit then. Today I had a chance to ask not the girls who sell this but have no idea what they actually sell (they start talking about sugar added when there is no sugar for sure), but a man who seemed to know. My question was if there was sulphur dioxide or similar used to preserve the dried dark apricots. Unfortunately, the answer was positive. He said there were preserving agents added to all their product line (which was considerable).
At a bio stall I saw some organic dates and asked the same question. I was surprised that people who own a bioshop don't know such details important for their, quite particular, customers.
I searched for information on dried fruit and found this. A lot of facts on food and medicines additives with a focus on kids and asthma and allergy, but it is really impressing. And here is a bit on salicylates.