Sticker solution

Finally, America’s top researchers are focusing on a problem that has been crying out for a solution.

No, I am not talking about world peace or aiding the needy. I am talking about something we all care about — getting rid of those annoying stickers on fruit.

The Associated Press reports that a Georgia company has developed a laser that etches labels onto the skins of fruits and vegetables. The etchings — “indelible but edible” — would carry the product information or point of origin now included on those darned labels.

Durand-Wayland Inc. needs an OK from the Food and Drug Administration to begin zapping zucchinis. The feds need to greenlight this one.

As it is, bureaucrats have been sitting on the application — three inches thick, no less — for two years. Seems that any use of radiation on fruit, even the weak light of a laser, is considered a food additive and must be thoroughly reviewed.

Can you say “overly cautious”? If the government had dragged its feet like this when we were fighting World War II, we’d still be fighting World War II.

Those stickers are more irritating than being trapped in a phone booth with Ann Coulter and Don Imus. Consumers never read them — they’re too small anyway. And who cares if you have a “1021” apple instead of a “1022”?

Don’t even get me started on the adhesive used to stick some of the stickers. Have the busybody bureaucrats ever studied whether that goop causes hair loss or weight gain?

A spokeswoman for the Produce Marketing Association said the laser etchings are intriguing. I say they’re just a few steps below a cure for cancer.

The laser vaporizes the top layer of fruit and vegetables, thus exposing lighter layers underneath and allowing numbers and letters to be read.

It supposedly works well with fruit like peaches and plums, but not so well with cantaloupes (not smooth enough) or brown potatoes (weak contrast between upper and secondary layers).

Tough beans, I say. If a few spuds have to be sacrificed in the March of Progress, well, they are expendable.