It has been since the end of WWII when the government had an over abundance of things like nerve gas that they needed to dispose of.  What a better disposal method than to spray it on food crops.  Turning DDT into a pesticide led the US down a dark road.

But that was the 1940s.  People like organic stuff now.  It has to be better now… doesn’t it?

No.  It is becoming worse.

An article published in the NY Times on May 3rd illustrates just how bad things have gotten.  Seed companies have been genetically modifying corn, soybean and cotton seeds for years to be Round Up resistant.  This means farmers can spray Round Up on their crops to kill the weeds, but not the crop.  Trouble is, weeds are smarter than farmers and companies like Monsanto.  Weeds have now evolved to be resistant to Round Up.  This means more chemicals and more genetic modification.

To get a better idea of what is so wrong with the food system in America you could read books like Omnivore’s Dilemma or In Defense of Food.  You could watch movies like Food Inc. or King Corn (which I highly recommend).  However, one of the best films out there on this particular subject is a little known documentary, The Future of Food.  You can watch it for free on Hulu.

It isn’t a secret as to what our opinion of GMO food is.  We don’t like it and are quite angry about it.  What can we do about it?  We are very conscience about our food choices.  We do our best to purchase food from reputable organic farmers.  We plant heirloom variety seeds.  We educate ourselves about the state of the food system.  We vote with our wallets.  It makes a difference.

We aren’t without our fair share of them here. We just don’t have the multitudes that others do. Sure, every bowl in our house is filled with some kind of fruit or veg. Heck, I even had buckets of berries on the kitchen floor. Oh they loved those.

There is no sure fire way to rid your home of fruit flies, other than get rid of all of the food sitting out, but there are some things you can do to lessen the population.

1) make sure your counters and sinks are clean. This even goes so far as to say keep the drains clean too. If you don’t have a disposal don’t try to shove food bits down your drain. If you do have a disposal run it frequently to get rid of all of the food bits.

2) inspect the produce you have sitting out daily. Any soft spots or mold is like throwing out the welcome mat for fruit flies. I go through the tomato basket and bowls every day to pick out the bad ones.

3) set out vinegar traps. Pour a small amount of apple cider vinegar (or beer or red wine) into a glass and cover it with plastic wrap. Poke a few holes in the wrap with a toothpick and set the traps near any produce you may have sitting out. The flies will fly in, but can’t get out. Just make sure to put out new traps every few days.

4) you could get a little gett-o and hang yellow sticky traps around the house, but they are unsightly and who wants to watch a twitching fruit fly on a sticky trap.

5) if all of that doesn’t cure your fruit fly infestation you may have a different matter on your hands. Fungus gnats. Fungus gnats are totally different than fruit flies. They feed on the organic matter of moist potting soil. Odds are if you have little flies flitting about your houseplants you have fungus gnats. The best way to cure those is to let your houseplants dry a little between waterings.

The good news is that once the soft produce clears from your kitchen the flies should go too.