Apeel, ‘I’dentification and Johannes Tauler
August 10, 2025
8 min read
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Newsletter
{Body}
Apeel
You may have some headlines about Apeel, the company applying plant-based films onto produce to slow down their water loss and oxidation to extend shelf life. While the controversy has generated some misinformation, there are legitimate concerns worth understanding.
Apeel's Organipeel coating is registered with the EPA as a fungicide, not merely a protective coating. This distinction matters because fungicides are designed to kill living organisms — specifically fungi — and consuming any substance engineered to destroy life raises obvious health questions as the human body didn’t evolve to process chemicals that eliminate life.
Of course, keep in mind that fungicides and produce-extending waxes have been applied to our foods for decades. Conventional apples, cucumbers, peppers, citrus fruits — all routinely receive chemical treatments to extend shelf life during long-distance shipping and storage. Apeel simply represents a newer iteration of this established practice, while being marketed as "natural" because it's derived from plant materials.
Here's where legitimate concern arises, though: 99.34% of Organipeel's formulation remains undisclosed to the public, classified as proprietary trade secret information. While organic certifiers have access to the full ingredient list, consumers don't. We're essentially being asked to trust that an undisclosed chemical mixture applied to our food is safe for long-term consumption.
And the disclosed 0.66%? Most of that is citric acid. But not the natural kind found in lemons. Industrial citric acid is typically produced using genetically modified Aspergillus niger (black mold) in laboratory fermentation processes. This synthetic version can contain residual mold byproducts and processing chemicals that don't exist in naturally occurring citric acid.
Of course, this isn't a black-and-white issue. We've grown accustomed to year-round availability of fresh produce — enjoying blueberries in January and apples stored since last autumn's harvest. These conveniences require preservation technologies, whether that's controlled atmosphere storage, traditional waxes, or newer formulations like Apeel.
So while I’ll definitely be avoiding eating any of their produce, I also won’t be ranting about how particularly wicked they are (because, again, all of the big chemical industries are pretty wicked).
Here’s a podcast episode about it if you want more insight.
{Mind}
The problem with identification
Last week I wrote about when your mind accidentally takes thoughts to be its identity and then forcefully declares that it is what it says it is.
Why does this matter? Two reasons: (1) identifying with a thought demands that a defense be mounted if ever the thought is challenged and (2) the inevitability of changing phenomena means whatever one identifies with will eventually dissolve.
We see the first flaw playing out in geopolitics across the world, and in extreme cases, manifesting as war. Vladimir Putin is so identified with the notion of Russian territorial rights that he'll destroy entire cities and economies rather than let this belief be challenged. Benjamin Netanyahu is so identified with the story of Israel's right to exist as defined by current borders, that he is thus willing to justify devastating military campaigns to defend that narrative.
Blaming world leaders is easy. Taking responsibility for your unconscious behavior is hard. How personally do you take it when someone challenges your political views, parenting style, or career choices? This subtle aggression is the same mechanism played out by the ego, just on a smaller scale. The intensity of your defensive reaction reveals how deeply you've merged your sense of self with a certain idea.
In short, when you believe you are your thoughts, challenging those thoughts is a threat to your very existence. The ego will — no, must — mobilize every resource to defend itself and its stories, even if it means causing tremendous collateral damage in the process.
The second flaw is even more inevitable. If you believe you are an idea, you are bound for disappointment, as that idea is guaranteed to vanish over time.
“I am the one with the good looks.” A time-bound thought destined for disappointment when the skin inevitably crinkles and the body gets flabby.
“I am the one who has the ideal job.” An identification that crumbles when one's interests change, the job market shifts, or cultural norms fluctuate.
“I am the one everyone relies on.” A mental projection that shatters when you become the one needing support.
Given enough time, identifying with a thought will always prove devastating. At best, your self-made story causes conditional happiness for the majority of your life, but must then be discarded as you die. At worst, your story is currently generating intense misery in you as reality fights you tooth and nail.
It must be said: the solution isn't to create better stories about yourself (although that can be temporarily helpful) — it's to recognize that you are not the story at all. You are the awareness and ‘isness’ through which all stories appear and disappear.
{Soul}
Sin, literally translated, means “to miss the mark.” I very much view it as misperceiving what is actually Here, or to confuse the illusion as the real thing.
It is not that Creation is in any way imperfect, but rather that your mind has become sinful — it sees a stain upon the world that, in Truth, is not there.
Thus, Life will continue reflecting back your defects again and again until there are no more sins left to atone for — until your vision has cleared — and you see that, actually, you were born holy.
August 3, 2025
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