Here's a bit of a quandary: A recent purchase (apple) from a local food store (one of the major stores in our area) turns out to be rotten on the inside, while on the outside it still looks really nice and fresh..
What's up with that, and how would this kind of thing happen..? Also had a couple peaches (same store) pretty much disintegrate on the counter over a period of 4 days.
Is this a symptom of irradiated food?
????!
Nah.
No offense, but it's you not knowing how to pick the fruit from the grocery bins. You can NOT go by just "looks!" :-)
Gentle fingernail flicks. Just like watermelons.
The fruit that "rings" is the best.
Mom taught me.
Okay...
I'll give that a shot next time. I always thought that fruit rotted from the outside in, though.
Hm. I suppose it _could_ have started from the stem end though.
Hope that helped! I'm always able to get a sweet, crisp apple (and watermelon...).
Flick the fruit. A dull thud, bad fruit. A sharp, crisp "tink", good fruit.
Are you sure it was rot, and not frass? If the dores and nearby flesh were full of black, grainy stuff, it was probably frass (poop) from codling moth larvae. Our organically-grown apples have that all the time. We just cut around it.
typo - for "dores" read "cores"
Apples and peaches "ring" with fingernail flicks? ???
Keep peaches and apples in the crisper in your fridge, not on the counter.
Not peaches dear!
I was referring specifically to apples, and also watermelons. The "thunk" has a high pitched sound to it to me as opposed to a dull thud.
I generally pick peaches that are slightly soft and smell richly. I also pick cantaloupe by color and smell.
I don't know anything about irradiated fruit. But fruit that has turned brown throughout is typical of having been kept in controlled-atmosphere refrigeration for far too many months, eg., 1 year too long.
With practice, you can gauge how old an apple is by examining its stalk. Were the apples reduced in price to get them off the shelf? Is it likely the chain of stores was clearing out an old (last seasons) stockpile to make way for the current season's?
Thanks for the replies!
The fruit was full price, not discounted, and 1000% it was not frass, it was rotted. I didn't even use it in my compost, it looked _nasty_! I'm sure it hadn't sat on the shelf for a season, but who knows these days..!
I'm not sure the apple had a stem at all.
gonzo ha scritto:
Perhaps they mantained this peach in the refrigerator under 0°C so that it appears beautiful outside but inside it looks & tastes like an ice-cream because its cells are dead and next it also becomes brown.
Most fruit rippens from the outside inwards, except for pears which do the reverse. If you wait for a pear to appear ripe on the outside, it is probably rotten inside.
I tend to leave my fruit on the tree (apples and peaches) until they start to fall to insure maximum sweetness. Most fruit in the stores is picked when it is not fully ripe (hard as baseballs). Leaving it sit on the counter to finish rippening may sweeten it up a bit, but the flavor will not be the same as a tree rippened fruit. I find that certain apples and peaches will go bad on the tree, so timing is critical. Peaches will develop brown rot and some apples will get mushy and spoil on the inside. I know which of my apples do that, so I pick them a bit early. I lose some of peaches to brown rot, but the ones I can salvage are sure sweet and flavorable.
Sherwin
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.