What have they done to fruit?

I just bought my weekly dose of fruit, and as usual I'm disappointed.

What have they done to the flavour?

Especially tomatoes, strawberries, rock melon (cantaloupe) and watermelon.

They seem to have sacrificed flavour for appearance and shelf life.


Anyone who grows their own , or is old enough to remember what they used to taste like, will know exactly what I mean.

I'd rather have a few holes or blemishes on my tomato, than have it taste like cardboard.

 

haha thank god i live right nextdoor to where they grow watermelon and i can get any type fruit free of charge. to me the flavour has not changed to me but maybe because i get it fresh right from the vine

 

Most any fruit tastes better picked RIPE from the vine and eaten. A lot of fruit for the stores is picked green and ripens in the crate, which hurts flavor.

 

My husband has just planted our tomatoes, potatoes, sweet peas, carrots, melon, pumpkin, & sweetcorn, for starters.

We enjoy real fresh fruit and veggies

 

Same here Lev, except it's my neighbor.

Steve

 

We give a lot of ours away to neighbors too. My husband just to love to grow them all, and grows far too much for us, even if I can and freeze it.

Later he will plant zuccini, eggpplant, peppers, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and last year we did squash too.

 

Yeah, this guy uses my boat alot so it's a trade-off thing I guess. Don't forget the baby cucumbers.

Steve

 

Exactly right. Many fruits are picked green and ripened artificially with Ethylene gas (C2H4). This is especially the case with soft fruits, such as bananas, strawberries and tomatoes. Picking fruit green does help in shipping and handling, which is fine for the producers and distributors, but also means the fruit contains substantially less fructose and various aromatic compounds that would normally occur in the ripe fruit, and gives fruit a lot of its flavour.

Sadly this practice is very wide spread nowadays. One thing that irks me about Australia particularly, is that we produce food in abundance, but the prime gets exported, and unless there happens to be a glut at the time, the general public gets the crud that's not suitable for export. I know in the west, partial monopolisation of retail outlets plays a part in that.

I agree with the growing your own, bit. I like my fruit and veggie patch, LoL! ;0

Speaking of foodstuffs, unless I'm just imagining it, meat is generally not as good as it used to be, either.

 

Agree with Insomniac, especially about strawberries. Chain stores persist in trying to sell you the fewest, biggest fruit they can stuff into a punnet. Get a punnet full of small strawberries and the taste is different.

Here in Cairns, we are lucky to have world famous Rusty's market where fresh fruit and vegetables are sold every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The Mong people (originally from Vietnam, or Cambodia, or somewhere like that (apologies if I have stated their wrong country of origin),have most of the stalls and sell really fresh stuff.

Bananas are now almost non-existent, thanks to Cyclone Larry, and sell for $6-7 per kilo. In the supermarkets they sell (?) for around $10 per kilo (kilo =2.2 pounds weight, to you Yanks) .

Me, I'll wait until October / November for the first crops to reach the market after Cyclone Larry for bananas. In the meantime, fresh oranges, apples and mandarines for me.

Bazza

 

It's not just that they are picked green, it's also the varieties they have bred.

I used to grow my own, but gave up because of pests.

I'm seriously considering starting again. I still have a Tahitian Lime tree, but even that gets attacked by Citrus Leaf Miner.

To all those grow their own, well done.


@Phantom, the same does seem to be happening with meat, especially pork.

I think the health craze removed any fat, and therefore flavour, from the meat.

 

Yep, fruit and veg is grown for weight productivity and appearance. Flavour and goodness are not high in producers and distributor's marketing strategy. A lot of really great species and varieties of fruit and veg are now becoming rare, or extinct due to the mass production and sales strategies. Oranges and the like are often soaked in water to make them look and weigh bigger. Go to eat them, and you have to get through about an inch and a half of skin - yech!.

I'm sure that's true about low fat and low flavour meat, since it’s the fat, raised to a high temperature that gives meat its flavour and makes it tender. Also not all fats are fattening anyway, but that's another topic entirely.

 

Not so sure about that one Phantom. The deer and elk we hunt are extremely low in fat, and taste just awesome. Mind you...they dont have other added tastes such as antibiotics

 

That's not just my opinion, that's established culinary and scientific fact. Even 'low-fat' meat contains significant amounts of lipids (fats). If it didn't, it would be as tough as an old boot. That's why discerning buyers of meat look for the so-called "marbling" of fat throughout the cuts of meat (not big hunks of fat, though). I hear what ya saying, but even venison, Kangaroo and the like has significant fat in it. But then there's all the protein and other reactions as well.

There's heaps of culinary and science articles to back this up. e.g.:-

http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/meat/INT-what-makes-flavor.html

Fat content and type aren't the only factors, of course. There are many others, such as protein and amino acid reaction, salt reactions, etc.

 

Fat does give you flavour (I must be delicious ).

The Japanese pay top dollar for certain types of marbled beef, such as Wagyu.

It's only been in the last 15 or so years, that meat has become very lean.

 

Some fruit get terribly depressed about their lack of flavor today, so much so there is a Fruitline emergency number 1-800-BAD-TASTE