I have grown fruit a lot through my life and even now I can picture and taste the tiny wild strawberries, so plump the act of picking them splits them down the middle, the sun warmed fruit kicked out perfumed violet flavours, notes of butter hay and a perfect sweetness that would have been lost by the following day, or even in the next few hours.
It feels like nature has made that moment just for you. But it didn’t because it’s not all about you, you were lucky enough to fall into natures pattern and experience how beautiful it can be to wait, accept scarcity and savour what was there. I had at most 8 of those strawberries, I say had, as soon as I had carefully stored them in my palm, a small feral daughter sucked them through the fingers with the surgical precision of an anteater.
The most relatable experience you will no doubt have as a Brit is scavenging a blackberry from a thorn filled hedge on a country walk. Along a single stretch of hedgerow you can experience the sour, firm and borderline abrasive mistake to warm, fat, watery, flavourless (full of belief that an fly spat on it) reject, along with every stage in the middle. The berries vary in colour and size which provide us with an indication as to where on the spectrum they sit, when they give over easily, swollen but tight and are worth it. what makes it worth it is the fact its free, you had to suffer a few bad ones to educate your palette, and you no doubt did it as a child. You remember passing them to friends with red dyed fingers, you pass down the experience as you watch your own children/nephews/grandchildren/friends indulge. Flavour is as much a memory as it is a taste, which is why scarcity and serendipity make that memory stronger, I have never enjoyed a blackberry out of a plastic punnet like I have one picked from a bush.
I say serendipity as fruit sits on a knife edge, the sugar levels needed to make them so alluring thorough the ripening process, makes them a breeding ground for bacteria, bacteria which spoils them. The spoiling process returns the rich minerals and sugars back to nature, but they are not so good for us.
A leaf of kale or spud from the ground doesn’t have the same precarious and fragile existence they sit out forever without threat, maybe get a bit tougher. It nods to a much cliched observation how we shouldn’t be able to get strawberries all your round that nods to an existence of an issue, I don’t feel we really appreciate what the issue is.
The strawberries we do get all year round are as good as the ones we get in the summer, because they are all shit. I know you are probably thinking, ok Mr Chef and your kitchen garden we can’t all be like you, but that’s a gross act of straw manning. Fact is we have lost quality in our fruit and veg isle, we have more ‘finest’, ‘best of’ and ‘premium’ stickers but ask yourself: when was the fruit so good you went back with the distinct goal of buying more? You do this with coffee, bread, cookies (I do) but we put fruit in our basket out of a habit and notion we need to eat more, not because we had to eat it again.
It sits in the first isle we face in the supermarket, packed high in boxes along the front of convenience shops, it’s images used in the marketing images. Making the place feel healthy. Used.
When you hit the shops the fruit and veg has been picked up, you have done the healthy bit so you can now treat yourself, it sits in the bottom of the trolley and gets damaged by everything else going on top. We don’t try it, touch it or interact with it, instead we buy bulk amounts in bags and boxes based on a price or a sticker. A large amount of which gets thrown after sitting about, there is nothing more off putting and unappetising as seeing food sat not being eaten, It’s like the last biscuit in the tin covered in the crumbs of the other biscuits that had been removed and enjoyed.
We are also not predisposed to eat vast amounts of fruit, hence why 80% of what we buy in shops are pre-packed in plastic and volumes. They need the sales. Our stomachs and appetites respond well to eating unprocessed food, we know when we have had enough. It doesn’t have the additional additives put in to keep us eating as so many of the packaged goods now have.
Fruit is where we keenly see the loss in flavour as they are the proud owners of the most vibrant and exciting ones. You know that feeling when you have in your hand a soft plum, bright firm raspberry or crisp apple, and you sink your teeth in to discover… nothing but bitter disappointment, regret, and a push to a new low. What you don’t do is seek more, it’s a commodification of food that pushes us this way, the drive for low prices (not to the consumer but food manufacturers) means farmers have to focus on yields.
But not always, take the fancy truffle, The fruit of very specific mushroom grown in damp woodland conditions hard to locate and virtually impossible to recreate. This inability to farm has improved their value and our appreciation of them, they are inconsistent and hard to come by so you can’t rely on their availability fresh for the menu. They go on when they are stumbled upon or we settle for the poor-quality paste and oils, but it isn’t the same.
Morrisons are now selling papayas and I can honestly say I have never tasted one like it, because it doesn’t taste like one. Over Christmas I went in search for a clementine, it took nearly 3 weeks to find one that I enjoyed eating. It was worth it. I ate four on the bounce. My daughter ate three.
Along with sugars and vitamin C fruits give us a decent amount of potassium (banana, kiwi, cherries), vitamin A (melons) and fibre (apple, kiwi, pear) but we are now becoming more aware of the bioactive compounds we have that are giving us huge benefits. It isn’t to hard to understand, we just need to look a little more closely.
We know fruit has some funky ass colour going on. We know why we see colour: the electromagnetic waves on the visible spectrum that get reflected into our eye, meaning the item we look at reflects light of that wavelength (oranges reflect orange et al) all other colours are absorbed by the object itself, of course you remembered that, I am not saying anything. The very appearance of the object can give us insight into how its health benefits and anti-oxidative properties.
There are four prominent compounds that create pigments reflecting this light..
Chlorophyll (green)
Absorbs all the sunlight apart from the green wavelengths. Age, acid and heat break down the chlorophyll and cause the plants to change colour: dull green colour, browning, yellow spots etc. we have seen the dead veg at the bottom of the fridge..
It’s pretty prevalent in all plants but not so directly in the fruit (they don’t do a lot of photosynthesising) in many instances it is hidden by stronger colours. Eating it reduces oxidative damage done by harmful carcinogens, it can cut inflammation, boost red blood cells and heal damaged skin.
Carotenoids (yellow, red, orange)
Are more stable than chlorophyll found in satsumas, oranges, mangos, squash, pumpkin and sweet potatoes a source of vitamin A. Another type (zeaxanthin) can be found in bell peppers, saffron and corn and then there is Lycopene is in tomato’s, capsanthin in peppers, which change colours and taste as they grow.
Carotenoids are found in many plants with chlorophyll, you just can’t see it till the chlorophyll breaks down. They are also antioxidants that can be converted to Vit A, a process improved with the addition of heat and fat. Your immune system, eyes, skin.. a few things.
Favonoids (red, blue, purple)
Flavonoids are gathering something of a buzz right now, we are at early adopter stage, they are not as widely ‘understood’ as ‘Gluten Free’ or ‘vegan’, but we are becoming more aware of them, they are appearing in conversations and search engines, mainly for middle class well heeled, we have been instructed to eat fruit and veg, Canada recommend 8 to 10 portions a day for men, WHO guidelines are 5 portions a day, Finland 400-500g a day. Spain go a step further and specify what fruits.. which got me thinking. It is not as simple as fruits are good, it’s more nuanced than that, we have flavonoids. There are a lot but ones to mention are:
Anthocyanins – (purple, blue and red)
purple carrots, red cabbage.. they are the least stable sensitive to acid and alkali. You body needs thet to help fight type 2 diabetes and heart disease. They also aid brain health.
Betalains (red, yellow, purple) These disolve in water and are sensitive to light and heat, we can’t easily digest them which is why beetroot so readily turns the water red and leaves us playing “beetroot of bowel cancer” when we glance into the toilet, caught off guard the next day. You also have red dragon fruit, prickly pear, flower petals, Berries and red amaranth. They are great for our bodies detox, they reduce pain, clean colon, improve vision and healthy skin.
Anthoxantins – (white and yellow) such as cauliflower and onion. Yellow products protect you from the sun and are good for your eyes, help reduce stroke risk as improve heart health.
There are a huge number of health benefits, it isn’t just ‘eat fruit’ its find the food that your body needs. It should make you realise that all the marketed and wrapped up sweet treats do nothing for out health, in fact they make it worse. They remove the goodness and extract the ‘flavour’..
The best example is that of drinks. Why eat fruit when you can grab a hand can that probably has the benefits of 5 fruits which is what was used to make…
The allure of fruit is harnessed condensed down in a drink is too good to pass.
‘from concentrate’ means the water content of the fruit has filtered and extracted removing most of the nutrients and fibre.
The remaining sugar loaded syrup is reconstituted with water, without the nutrients and fibre, without the polyphenols, vitamins and organic compounds we got excited about up there.
At this point the additional sweeteners, preservatives, “natural flavors”, and “Vitamin C” substitute - ascorbic acid (known to not give the same benefits as the real thing) are all added to make it feel fresh.
The top two best sellers on Amazon are J20 followed by Robinsons fruit shoots made by Britvic.
Context is king, I mean look at what they tell us about these:
Get your tastebuds tingling with J2O Orange and Passionfruit. Full on bold flavour that’ll add some brightness to any social occasion.
(That’s what I have been missing!)
Chuck in some ice cubes to really get tongues wagging!
J2O are Passionfruit about Orange, we’ll Apperly give juicy flavours a mango!
We are all about bringing the big, the bold, full on fruity flavours to every social occasion.
A non-alcoholic, fruity refreshment to get your tastebuds tingling.
And all our packaging is recyclable too.
It’s not a drink. It’s a lifestyle! Albeit a desperate one. I mean you are paying £8.99 for 12 tins 2/3rds the size of coke tins. Whats in it?
Ingredients
Water – (There is no legal requirement for the companies to tell you how much of this drink is made up of water… you’d feel totally ripped off if they did, so they don’t.)
Fruit Juices from Concentrate (Orange 15%, Passion Fruit 3%),
Orange Fruit from Concentrate (7%),
Sugar, Acid (Citric Acid), Stabiliser (Pectin), Flavourings, Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Colour (Anthocyanins), Antioxidant (Ascorbic Acid), Sweetener (Sucralose).
It’s just.. Everything! £9 for 12 drinks isn’t really cheap given is mostly water and the left-over pulp made into squash with sugary water. The makers of this made £140.2 Million profit last year. A jump in profit of 45.3%.
There are 600 varieties of orange out there, this is just labelled “orange” is it the one with the best flavour? Britvic orange cordial doesn’t even have orange in. yet the flavours are carefully crafted.
So how do we stop people buying this? A company this size means the farmer will be price driven. Which means he has to push out volumes. US market price for Valencia oranges is 26p per kg. the price of that box would buy 34.5kg of fruit. I guess cheap is relative.
Take away.
Eat more fruit.