The European Union’s farm chief called on Tuesday for the comeback of the curvy cucumber and other odd-shaped produce, part of proposals to ease market restrictions on fruit and vegetables amid rising food prices.

EU agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said cash-strapped food buyers should be allowed to buy the less-perfect green bean, wobbly melon or stringy carrots that are not quite up to “grade A” uniformity standards and thrown away.

The standards have been in place for most fruit and vegetable products across the EU since the 1980s.

“I don’t think the size of the cucumber is so important for consumers, if you can buy at cheaper prices in a high-price market,” the commissioner said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Euro-skeptics have used the rules to paint the EU as an overbearing bureaucratic body bent on ruining the lives of citizens by trying to ban the curvy cucumber or the straight banana.

Her plans face widespread opposition from EU capitals, many of which want to keep restrictions in place because they feel dropping the classification would confuse consumers.

Fischer Boel has called for scrapping 26 of 36 rules on quality control, which set limits on how big a top class cucumber or cherry should be and what shape and weight it should conform to _ and leave it up to food suppliers to decide on such rules.

Facing opposition, the EU commissioner proposed to keep 10 such rules in place; notably on apples, pears, strawberries, sweet peppers, tomatoes, nectarines, lettuce and endives, grapes, kiwis and citrus fruit.

Those classifications still account for 75 percent of cross-border trade.

The ones Fischer Boel proposes easing include eggplants, beans, cucumbers, onions, melons, spinach and leeks.

The blemished produce could get labels “for use in cooking” instead of being dumped in the garbage by quality control inspectors at farms or warehouses.

Fischer Boel says the measures would help “improve the quality of life” for many people, notably low income earners who are now facing bigger supermarket bills and who might be buying less healthy food products as a result.

EU officials hope to have a vote on simplifying the rules in July. However, a group of 17 countries led by Italy is vehemently against cutting the red tape.