If you hit Google with anything like "fruit label collection", you'll get hundreds of hits: sites where thousand-label collections are regarded as beginner stuff, 'official' publications, 'first on the Web', and lots of others. So, why this one?
Well, it has a serious purpose - it's in aid of a cholesterol-reduction diet. I stick to labels with numbers on them - they're easy to sort. (Officially they are PLU#s: Product Location Units. They aren't standardised - every supplier chooses their own. Some add a '9' in front to signify organic.) Now that I've cleared a hundred of them, I've quit feeling threatened by all those articles announcing yet more reductions in 'safe' cholesterol levels and insisting I've got to start popping pills. But, there sure are a lot of unusual-tasting fruits out there!
My thanks to St. Laurent Fruit & Vegetable, Ottawa, who as you can see pack more varieties of healthy food into their store than most supermarkets ten times their size. (A few came from other stores.)
John Sankey