Live and let lime

By Jessica Berget, Editor-in-Chief

 

Have you ever wondered why limes are so expensive? Some supermarkets charge more than a dollar for a tiny, singular lime. As someone who buys limes for cooking Mexican, Vietnamese, or Thai food, I’ve always wondered why these small, green babies are so costly. I can see why weather or production would make a good become expensive, or the price of shipping them to Canada would also make sense. One answer I was not expecting is Mexican drug cartels.

It’s true! According to a 2014 CBC article, the reason that these limey bastards are so expensive is because these cartels are branching out to other means of business. Since they are one of Mexico’s key exports, they are shifting to also becoming lime cartels. Interesting, no?

You’re probably wondering why I’m talking about limes. Although, why shouldn’t I? Limes are great, I shouldn’t need a reason to talk about limes. They’re a delicious hybrid citrus fruit, they taste good in salsa and in curries, it’s my favourite Starbucks drink that they no longer sell (rest in peace Cool Lime Refresher), and you know what? They’re just neat. Oh yeah, and I guess since my sign off for these lettitor things is literally “limes,” that probably raises some eyebrows.

To tell the truth, I don’t really remember how my obsession for limes began. It was as an inside joke with my friends when we killed ourselves laughing talking about well, limes but I don’t remember how it got started. Ever since then, whenever we yell out “limes!” to each other, it’s guaranteed to get a chuckle. When I first thought about becoming Editor-in-Chief of this paper, I had trouble deciding what my sign-off could be. My friends recommended as a joke to just put “limes,” But I actually loved it, so I did. If you ask me, limes are an underrated fruit anyway, and they should be in the limelight.

 

Limes,

Jessica Berget