Maybe it's because I'm a crazy hippie and rarely go into a supermarket anyway, or because I live in a borderline urban neighborhood where the non-greenmarket produce tends to be pretty awful, but so far I don't really find that the produce from my local farmer's market is significantly uglier than normal. A little dirtier, yes. But that's what the kitchen sink is for. A little less uniform, sure. But that's because they're not selected for ease of shipping, but for their taste.

I rarely find stunted, bruised, or rotting local produce in my neck of the woods. Or at least anything that looks worse than what's on offer at Associated.

As we discussed on the Kitchen thread, if it washes off, it's not some exciting form of Velveteen-bunny realness that pesticides and processing destroys -- it's dirt. Just dirt. Or maybe fungus or mildew. But the apples would be just as "real" if the farmer had cleaned them.

If you've ever grown your own fruit, you know it doesn't look dramatically different from what's in the stores, allowing for differences in variety.