Fruit sweetness poll
- Fruit sweetness is trivial, doesn’t matter to me
- Sweeter fruit is generally better fruit
- When I buy fruit I try to pick the sweetest
0 voters
What do you think, is the sweetness of fruit important to you?
6 Likes
I like a good sweet/tart balance that brings out both, and if anything I lean tart. For instance I eat walmart grapes but I prefer the green ones that sometimes have some tart, but the seeded old concord from our vines are better with a better sweet/tart balance and more flavor.
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I like sweetness in my fresh eating fruits. For the cooking ones, it’s not important since sugar can be added.
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None of the above.
Fruit sweetness is not trivial.
Sweeter fruit is not generally better fruit. That is demonstrably untrue.
When I buy fruit I almost never pick the sweetest.
The poll seems designed to support an opinion that sweetness is very important and does so by excluding options/answers that might not support that conclusion.
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I would have to say none of the above too. Sugar kills flavor if too high. Like commercial jams have no flavor except sweet. Yet no sugar is no better. A nice acid-sugar balance is always appreciated.
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What is the point of this poll exactly? We already know that most fruit growers prefer higher brix fruit than what is commercially available- at least in the matter of common tree fruits. We also know that people vary in their tastes for the acid-sugar balance.
I personally don’t like low acid fruit unless brix is very high, some people enjoy Whitelady low acid peaches that come in at only 12-14 brix as grown here, and low acid peaches and nectarines in general are not all particularly high sugar. This registers bland to some palates but pleasing to others. I’ve noticed a tendency for people who come from warm climates to be more attracted to low-acid fruit, for whatever that is worth. Even the diets of people in southern states seem to lean more on high sugar, speaking without scientific basis- but boy, I’ve tasted some extremely sweet ice-tea and lemonade from Southern kitchens.
If I could productively grow low-acid 20+ nectarines, they would be half of the nects growing in my nursery, but productivity is a huge problem with them here. Some don’t set fruit well and those that do are mostly destroyed by wasps before they reach their potential. I can afford to grow enough of them to serve my own pleasure on good years, but they would never stop me from also enjoying lower sugar -higher acid nects.
I had my first experience this year with sweet only fruit …a mulberry that I bought from OGW as an Illinois Everbearing… that bore first fruit this year and they were white mulberries… obviously a mixup.
They had no tartness / flavor at all just sweetness… and I did not like them at all.
I would not have liked them any better if they were 2 or 3x sweeter… IMO got to have flavor/tartness and some sweetness to be good…
A nice ripe loganberry I would say is something like 70 tart / 30 sweet… where blackberries blueberries raspberries are more like 50/50… and strawberry and grapes apples peaches are more like 40/60 tart sweet and I like all those very much.
Sweet only… no matter how sweet… is blaugh to me.
I could not vote in your poll… cant agree with any of those options.
Add one for some level of sweetness and tartness required… and those can vary quite a bit and I still like it… then I can vote.
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I like a sweet/tart balance, but that’s just me. Look at the commercially available fruits in most grocery stores. Bland, under ripe, sickly sweet. I believe that most uneducated consumers attribute sweetness to being “good”, and the less sweet, the “less good” that fruit is.
I’ve had folks ask for apples that were sweet, with no other requirements for them to buy. To them, a sweet apple was good, and the more complex the flavor, the worse they thought it was.
Look at Honeycrisp. Hugely popular among non fruit growers, because it’s very sweet, yet I’m sure we can all name at least a couple apples that we prefer over Honeycrisp. I grow it because it sells well, and my wife likes it.
2 Likes
About the only thing I can think of… that I would prefer to be quite sweet with little to no flavor/tartness…
Perhaps something like a jujube variety… or celeste fig… which I could dehydrate and then pulverize to make my own raw sugar.
I dont eat refined sugars … but do occasionally do raw honey pure maple syrup or coconut palm sugar (as unrefined as possible).
Making my own from figs or jujube that were sweet only mostly… I could get into that.
1 Like
The poll is sorely missing my answer: It really depends on the fruit and the day and what I’m doing with it.
I like nice sweet dates, and I like plain raw cranberries. I think even within the same variety of a fruit at different sweetness levels, I get different things out of it. I can’t really say any one level is best (though some may be better than others). But I wouldn’t say sweetness is trivial or doesn’t matter. In fact, I would say that sweetness is one of the important components, but it doesn’t operate in isolation.
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The point of the poll was to test if the nonsense expressed in this thread Why is brix so important? Does higher brix mean more flavorful / tastier? - General Fruit Growing - Growing Fruit was in fact true.
Look at my last post in that thread.
The way I read the poll 90% think that brix of fruit is important.
Could it have been a better poll, I’m sure yes.
Or… sweetness alone does operate well … but really only if you are using it as a sweetner for other things… that have flavor but need sweetning.
A pint of Logan berries + 4 tablespoons maple syrup… oh my good stuff.
Coffee cream and some homemade date/fig/jujube sweeter… I could do that every once in a while.
I voted that sweeter fruit is generally better fruit, but it is not quite the way I would describe my taste preference. I can eat and enjoy a syrupy sweet red delicious apple but only if there is some tartness to go with it. My overall flavor preference is balanced with some umami, some tartness, and some sweetness. From this perspective, most of the super sweet varieties available today would not be enjoyable to me.
Watermelon typically brix 12 to 14. I generally like sweeter watermelons that have a good watermelon flavor to complement the sweetness. I like peaches that have strong peach flavor along with sweetness. From past experience, these peaches would brix 16 to 20. I have had peaches that were too sweet.
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Why add syrup if brix is meaningless?
Why add syrup to pancakes if brix is meaningless?
Why do Americans consume 150 lbs of sugar a year on average if brix is meaningless?
If brix is meaningless why do we regularly have threads like this: East coast growers, how’s your brix - General Fruit Growing - Growing Fruit
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I never said sweetness is meaningless…
Alone… I care nothing for it.
Combined… I prefer it… anywhere from about 60/40 tart/sweet to 40/60.
Logans alone and especially processed in to something like French toast topping needs a little more sweetning. Not too much more for me… but much more for my wife.
No but others have and that’s the point of the poll.
@fruitnut … I think that at least some of them are saying something similar to me.
Brix or sweetness alone is not something that is absolutely better if it is higher.
Coconut palm sugar is less sweet than highly refined sugars… and stevia leaf is 30 to 150 times sweeter than table sugar.
If I had to eat one of those alone… I would choose coconut palm sugar… the lowest brix option. It taste much better to me.
It has a little flavor and sweetness which works well.
Pure stevia leaf at 150 x sweeter… yuck.
So you started this topic to demonstrate that people are in fact drawn to the sugar that is part of why we define fruit as fruit, and often consider fruit without high sugar like cucumbers and squash, vegetables? Of course we generally consider sweetness of fruit to be important, but where we vary is how high the brix has to be to fully enjoy eating fruit and what is the best balance of sugar to acid.
The nonsense? I thought many of the comments were interesting.
One thing that hasn’t been discussed is the importance of appearance- any chef knows presentation is important. Two of the most beautiful apples I grow are Ark Black and Pink Lady and their appearance heightens my appreciation even when eating them.
I’m excited that the Barnsby’s strain of Pink Lady featured by ACN ripens a couple weeks earlier so I can now enjoy the variety at peak ripeness. The pleasure begins when I see the trees festooned with its beautiful pink fruit.
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I’m not arguing with you. I agree with your statement.
Maybe some day you have the opportunity to realize that there are fabulous tasting fruits that aren’t the least bit acidic balanced or not.
Thank you!!!