Fruit is highly variable but always sold as high quality in terms of price. Overall the practice is misleading at best but dishonest at the worst. How many times do you get blueberries and they are a mix of sour and sweet , strawberries? Clearly we know they are two different varities mixed together to sell the poorly flavored crop. This is done commonly with many products now like honey could be a blend of 20 types. Every honey has a unique flavor but most just think honey is honey. Fuji apples as an example can be excellent but nowadays 1 out of every 15 times are they the apple im looking for. Many wonder why people dont eat their fruits and vegetables but i believe its due to quality issues. Ever had a home grown tomato? Ever had a green house tomato? Why isnāt a home grown tomato 20x more expensive? Its 20x healthier, 20x more flavorful! When i have extra fruit iām very honest about the flavor. People ask me why donāt more people know about aronia i reply they taste terrible and you need to dilute them with apple juice to make them palatable. They make a good dry red wine if your one of the few who like dry red wine. They are very healthy.
Also, there is also something very special about the satisfaction and taste of your own fruit, unless youāve grown so many varieties you can really be picky. I will never forget the taste of my first home-grown Elberta peach. It was just the best peach ever. Not much in the supermarket really tastes good. Also my own green beans were the best ever. No room for Aronia, just room to squeeze in two black currants. Thank you Clark.
You know, I never thought about it that way, but I agree with you that could be a big reason why some people prefer fast food to healthy foods. You know exactly what you are getting every single time you order a big mac, but every bag of spinach might have just a few leaves that are slimy and stink, which reduces the allure of an otherwise excellent product.
I agree. I think most people who donāt like fruits and vegetables may never have eaten really good quality ones. Thereās also an art to preparing vegetables well. and it seems as though fewer and fewer people really cook any more.
im one that hasnt found vegetables very appealing but i was raised in a meat and potato family with bread always on the table. we ate fresh veggies from the garden but only as a side so my skills at making them good enough to eat as a meal is woefully lacking. ive been trying different recipies and its getting better but still not there yet. its hard to make a dish well when youre not a fan of veggies in the 1st place. i do alot of boiled dinners and pot roasts but im trying to get more tasty green leafy veggie dishes but not having much luck. ive tried eating salads with some meat in it and it just doesnt hold me long. 2 hrs later im hungry again. ive tried all kinds of combos.
I stopped going to our local farmers market when I discovered that the samples provided are perfect and sweet, but the āfor saleā baskets are basket casesā¦hard and bland. A real bait and switch.
There is also the reverse concept: folks who have only eaten the rock-hard, tasteless orbs sold at every supermarket. This is their normal. When you pick a perfect peach from your home garden and give it to themā¦āno thanksā. Seen this more than once.
thanks for the tips. ill check into them.
you could also have a look at a healthy but good cookbook.
i gave my mother The How Not to Die Cookbook | NutritionFacts.org
And she loves it. I think in the past 2 months she wenāt 2 days without eating a recepie from the book.
Using a lot of spices (not just peper and salt) also really helps. To make those veggies tasty.
You can also cook a lot and freeze a bit. So you can still eat healthy on busy days by just defrosting it and heating it in the oven.
The cookbook was written by a chef. But with health guidlines from Michael Greger.
he also has a youtube channle going over healthy food and the scientific basis for his claims.
His presenting style always calls up associations with a magician for me. Is that more of the american style of presenting? or just me?
He does seem to follow the science. Instead of looking for that 1 scientific source that can be interpreted as agreeing with an already determined (mainly by emotion) viewpoint.
When i read a few of the articles myself to compare his interpretation i could not find any āflawsā in his reasoning. Although somtimes in his ājourny taking you to the eventual pointā he glances over error margins and significance. But the end conclusion always seems to be reasonably supported by scientific consensus. Or close to it.
thanks Oscar!
I think, in terms of store-bought fruit/veg, you have to keep in mind that lots of it is shipped under-ripe.
Here, there have been great prices on pineapples through a chunk of the winter, as well as avocados.
They have both been really good, so long as they sit out long enough to ripen before getting used.
How many people still know how to check if stuff is ripe? If they eat it when it was bought, it would be awful.
We really try to focus on growing what we can and WILL eat, ( and what has the best taste/$/work ratios) but knowing when to pick and how to cook/prep it is a hugely important.
With lots of garden produce, it often feels like there are more ways to use things that can be found. It just takes time and a willingness to keep trying new possibilities. ( I got 3 new sour cherry products just last year!)
European pears are usually good it works out for commercial interest that they have to be picked hard and ripen off tree. Citrus and avocado can be good ( and bad), otherwise no fruit from the supermarket is impressive
This is all a result of the extension service. They do their work for commercial growers, and flavor is not a factor in commercial growing (as long as it is edible). I take a look at what the local extension recommends, and I often am seeing varieties that I know are mediocre. The fact that they have to pick them before they are ripe to ship them out for the grocery stores just makes them worse. My in-laws couldnāt believe the flavor difference between the cilantro from the store and what i freshly cut from the garden.
There is certainly something to be said for knowing when fruit is ripe to get the most out of it, but even if I wait and let the store bought apple āripenā, it will never be as good as the same variety picked when ripe.
Sometimes marketing also comes into play, I donāt think anyone who has test tested Pomegranates would tell you that Wonderful is the best, but that is the only variety i have ever seen in a grocery store. They ran a very successful marketing campaign and pretty much dominated the pomegranate industry in the US.
I bought my first Cosmic Crisp apples last week. They were a huge disappointment. Recently purchased apples from the local grocery store, ranked in order of best to worst tasting:
- Pink Lady
- Granny Smith
- Gala
- Cosmic Crisp (at $3/# they were the most expensive)
I bought blueberries a few days ago that looked really nice, and were the worst tasting I have EVER had. They were weirdly grainy and mealy - yuck. If I didnāt know better, I would think apples and blueberries were all no good. Thank goodness I know better. 
Yup, they seem to do the marketing so people buy based on the first time they tasted the fruit. Pink Lady and Honeycrisp are two examples of that up here. The first year our stores carried them they could not keep enough in stock now when I buy them they are tasteless, tough skinned and substandard yet the price has not gone down. You might as well buy a Red Delicious or Golden Delicious, they are cheaper and taste just as bland.
I never buy blueberries in the store we get the ones that taste like wallpaper paste no matter what time of year. I search for local pickers of wild blueberries.
I think the idea that the taste is partly why people donāt eat fresh vegetables has some merit for sure. Greenhouse tomatoes or cucumbers are put in salads simply to add some colour variety, certainly not because they taste good. Kind of like the apple I used to put in the kids lunches, it came home every day but a healthy snack in their lunch made me feel like I had done my job LOL.
Indian cooking has a lot of high vegetable dishes. Or good Chinese stir fry recipes, but those usually require a lot more heat power than most US or European kitchens have.
Iām eating a Cosmic Cisp grocery store apple at the moment. Nothing to write home about. Typical grocery store apple.
On a related note, I see so many people that donāt eat fruit that grows at home. I mean, they already have fruit trees that bear heavily. But they hire a landscaper to clean away the fruit. And eventually cut the tree down.
Iāve seen this way too often.
Sheesh, and here I am wishing I had more fruit that grew in my zone.
The biggest offenders are people that live in urban areas in CA ā citrus is used as an ornamental there. And they leave the fruit on the tree to rot.
All the while they buy the exact same variety at the grocery store. Not naming names, but I know people who do this.
It isnāt much better in WA state, apples fall off trees and create a mess, same with plums and persimmons. Here they hire a landscaper and cut the tree down.
So very,very true. Excellent points.