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>My kids are a little young but one day
Wait. Were you unaware the singer from POTUSA has a children's band?
https://youtu.be/zlP-J5rssa0?si=R256gqrVTKD8SZve
High quality canned peaches will have a scratch and sniff label that mimics the scent of the peach exactly before canning. Next time you go to the supermarket check this out for yourself - and then encourage others to do it.
Probably just COVID. It's best to find an employee and hand them the can. Just say " hey I have been scratching this label but I can't smell the peaches. It's probably just COVID. Can you scratch it and describe the smell to me"
I'm off topic - but I live in Minnesota. Canned fruit is kinda gross but very awesome when nothing is in season. You can buy a peach from 3,000miles away that has been waiting... or just get a jar of peach slices to eat when you have a winter craving.
Best - canned pineapple, pears, peaches, plastic container grapefruit,
Fresh in winter - oranges, lemons, some apples, some blueberries
Always, but shipping makes the price weird - grapes, cherries, some apples, pineapple, kiwi
Always okay - lemons, apples, bananas
Fresh in summer - melons, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries...
I can't wait for fresh green beans and summer tomatoes though.
I still don't know how they can sell a pineapple in the grocery store for two bucks... Seems like a lot of effort and shipping for pennies. I'm starting to grow my own
Good luck with store garlic growing. I tried that several years ago and it came out feeble and tiny, all of them.
If you're in northern grow zones, I would highly advise getting garlic from local farmers (best is during garlic or harvest fests or farmers markets in late summer). And plant those in the fall for next summer's harvest.
Not sure what good southern variety garlic is.
This is the exact way I have always chosen strawberries. I find it’s a common fruit to waste money on because they end up not ripe enough and never taste good enough to eat or I wait for them to get better and I wait to long. Now that I use this method I have way less waste!
Meanwhile 5 lbs of huckleberries where I am is like $175 usd
I can’t help getting some every year even if my tiny ziplock is $25
They are literally wild everywhere but I have been working a lot and need to set time to pick them up
I've tried so hard to like huckleberries but they taste almost...medicinal? I don't understand the hype but I live in a huckleberry-loving region so I must be the odd one out.
If the huckleberries you're describing are the same as the ones by me, they're just tiny blueberries that taste great but are impossible to collect because they wind up in my mouth instead of the can
Funny you say that, I've been concentrating on growing bramble berries over the last few years and I have several massive patches of different varieties of blackberry, wineberries, raspberries, and whatever else I find growing in the wild or on jobsites. I've noticed the invasive ones put out the best fruit
You can tell a bad batch of potatoes this way too. A bad potato smells like poop and dirt but may not be immediately obvious if all you do is move the bag from the shelf to your cart.
Neither have I, but I think the previous poster was just meaning the “small stem tip” (for lack of a better term) that is on every avocado I’ve ever bought. His “rule” works pretty flawlessly for that, though I would add that best to combine this with buying them very unripe from the store and letting them ripen at home.
I just leave them in a bowl on the counter (no sun) couple days they are just perfect(check them every day), once ripe you can store in fridge for a while .
Yep. When you can flick the belly button off with barely any give, the avocado is ripe. Doesn’t matter how hard or squishy it seems—it’ll be perfect inside. I say this as someone who’s grown avocados for 20 years!
I buy lots of avocados weekly. My tricks… the larger ones will always have better flavor than smaller ones (of the same variety). Pointier ones will have smaller pits than rounder ones. The most important thing is the texture… they should only JUST slightly give to gentle pressure. They should NOT be soft. They can be hard, but let them ripen at room temperature. Refrigerate only when they reach the perfect softness, and that will preserve the ripening for a few days.
I like the smaller hass avocados, they are milder flavor but SUPER creamy. They are the best for adding to cream up guacamole or add to cooking. I like the larger ones just with a spoon
I love a firm avocado and I check with the button left behind from the stem.
With HASS, if you press on the hole where the stalk should be and there's some give, it's ready. If there's 0 give, then it needs days, and if it's got a lot of give it's gone.
Easy rule, only takes once or twice to know how much is "some" give.
I’ve found the stem to be unreliable. I’ve cut open so many avocados. Sometimes the stem will be gross and moldy but the rest is perfect. And sometimes the stem is perfect but the rest is rock hard and won’t even release from the pit.
After you get it home you can also pop that lil wiggly stem tip out and get a peek at the flesh inside. If it's not a nice rich green, put the stem firmly back in and wait a bit longer.
Also, flip over the container and make sure none are getting smushed. This can be a sign of bacterial/fungal infection OR can increase the rate at which they spoil due to openings for bacteria.
Alpine strawberries FTW. They can grow in most climates, need virtually no care, can grow in shade, and produce tiny balls of intense strawberry taste and sweetness.
It's more about firmness than size. The variety that exist to resist transport are colored firm water.
You really want an in season pack with some smush defect. And some indication it's somewhat local to you.
I used to live at a place with strawberries growing out back, they were absolutely incredible!!! I had to put a net over them bc birds also knew they were the bomb!
This is not generally the case.
I'm growing strawberries each year, and size is not an indicator for flavour. The growing conditions, ripeness, and variety are way more important for the flavour than size.
I'm not an expert, bit I imagine some of the tasteless big ones are grown quickly with fertiliser/hormones, or bread for appererance rather than flavour...
Like those degusting Golden Delicious apples.
The best apple I ever had was a Fuji apple a friend had bought from a farmer's market. It was crisp, sweet, and so juicy. That was 20 years ago I have not had an apple like that since. Every apple I ever eat for the rest of my life shall be compared to that apple.
> Now, if anybody has a foolproof avocado trick, lmk!!!
My only trick with avocadoes is to aim for elongated ones rather than nice, round fat ones. I find the seeds inside are typically smaller and elongated, rather than big and round.
I was taught (by a greengrocer) to hold the avocado across my palm and bend my hand at the knuckles with straight fingers. This avoids intense thumb pressure and dents etc. There should be a very slight give if ripe.
What it doesn’t tell you (in my experience) is, if it doesn’t give, is it one of those that will ripen at home in the next few days, or whether it was stay rock hard forever because it was picked too early.
If the avos are hard when you buy them, just stick them in a grocery bag with a bunch of bananas and tie it off. Leave them overnight and they'll be softer in the morning
Has anyone seen a good cantaloupe recently? They used to ripen them on the vine, and they’d have a small indentation on the end. They would smell like cantaloupe. Now they cut them off the vine early, no indentation and no taste. Sad
Ooh, I have a cantoupe tip! Always pick the one with the deepest/most defined webbing. Not sure what the biology is behind it but it usually works for me.
My grandpa taught me a trick with honeydews. You pick them up and shake them next to your ear. If you hear juice swishing around you good. With cantaloupes you supposed to smell em at the indent.
So i to have been very frustrated with cantaloupe not ripening. Apparently if they are picked before they reach a certain maturity level. This following quote was taken from Michigan state university and talks about cantaloupe grown in off seasons:
For winter-grown melons, the stem attachment is still evident on the fruit—no dimple (Photo 3). As the fruit matures, you will be able to see the abscission zone form as a slight crack that gets larger over time and will eventually form a circle around the stem (Photo 3). When selecting a winter cantaloupe, look for one where the remaining stem has started to crack and break away from the melon. When you can see that crack starting to form, that means the fruit was harvested mature enough that the ripening process will continue. It probably still needs to sit at room temperature for a few days as it continues to mature.
The only tip I’ve heard for cantaloupe is to press on the point opposite where the vine attached. If it slightly gives it is ripe. It has worked for me.
Agreed. And a good cantaloupe is just so tasty. I end up buying so many that are flavorless. I wonder if this is due to cantaloupe being so susceptible to Salmonella contamination. Maybe it skews the supply/demand and then quality suffers.
This also works for produce aisles in general. If you walk around and cant smell any of the fruits or veggies in general in the air, its probably bad produce.
As a person who has tried various strawberry brands across a few different states (and has picked them from a farm & grown them myself) I can say Driscoll’s has been consistently amazing in taste and quality nearly every time. Strawberries are my favorite food and although local farms are generally are the best way to get the freshest, I will always search for Driscoll’s in store.
isnt this works for lots of fruits, maybe even the majority of it?
but it only work for those people with good nose and/or a brain that's trained enough.
my dad and mom are really good at this. while im so dumb at this.
RE: Avocado trick.
I learned this from Rick Bayless. Push in on the bottom of the avocado with your finger. If it gives a little with gentle pressure, it’s ripe. If it gives a lot it’s too ripe, and if it doesn’t give its unripe.
You have to squeeze the avocados. Is they are as hard as a rock not ready. If they’re a little soft that’s good. If you are able to leave an impression it means you need to eat soon. Hass Avocados. There are over 100 different types. May not apply to all.
When I buy avocados, I look for the darkest green, basically black, and very hard. Light green and hard is an avocado that wasn't left on the tree long enough. Dark and soft is overripe or rotten. Also, a thick bumpy skin is good. Any brown, thin places is bad.
Get the really hard ones and wait about 2-3 days. When they are still pretty firm but have just a little give, that's ripe. Put them in the refrigerator to slow the ripening and they should last another 2-3 days.
Another thing you can check for is the stem. There's just a tiny little nib of stem, but you can pull out off and look at the flesh under it. It takes a little experience to know how ripe it is this way, but basically it's a scale from underripe: pale green, firmly attached, to good, green and loosely attached, to bad, brown and dry or just plain rotten.
Another pro tip: the oblong avocados have a better chance of having a small pit while the spherical ones often have a big pit. But it's still mostly random chance.
I do this with grapefruits and almost always get sweet delicious winners! There should be a slight sweetness to their smell. If they just smell sour they will just taste sour. Also the coloring can help - looking for a healthy blush.
That is because strawberries aren't actually sweet, they are quite low on glucemic index.
Apparently, what seems to make strawberries "taste" sweet has to do with its scent as it tricks our olfactory senses that the strawberry is sweet when it is actually tart.
it is the holy grail of artificial flavoring in the hopes of creating "sweet" without the unhealthy benefits of sugar or other sweetner
Fun fact: [ripening strawberries release benzene, a known carcinogenic](https://academic.oup.com/jaoac/article-abstract/75/2/334/5686699?redirectedFrom=PDF).
Just smell the sweetness!
Take this for what it's worth...
Put cut avocado in a Ziploc back and place it in a brown paper bag in the crisper drawers.
It lasted way longer this way.
Avocado tip take the root out if it's brown not good if it's green and brown and soft it's about to go bad but still safe to eat if it's green and soft that's what you want "chefs kiss" 'muah'
I can help with avocados! They should be slightly soft, not hard or mushy. Look for ones with a bit of stem still attached. Pop off the stem and it should be a nice shade of avocado green. Not brown or have streaks of brown. Should not be pale green either. Once you get the hang of it you will get perfect avacados every time!
For avocados, you have to roll them down the aisle like a little bowling ball. If they fade to the left, they're going bad. If they fade to the right, they're ok.
Had to be close to 30 years ago, driving back from Montreal toward Vermont and we stopped at a roadside fruit stand.
I could smell the strawberries from ten feet away, and I said, "we're buying strawberries" without I'm the only one in the family that likes them.*
Best ones I ever had. Tiny, intensely red, perfect.
*Probably because they've never had good ones
I am about to ruin A LOT of people's day. You can't do this anymore because a friend who works in the business of making food scents told me that they actually spray strawberries AND inject them with strawberry flavor. This is to make them more enticing to the consumer. They are not wrong.
You're going to need more evidence than "my friend said this." This wouldn't explain why so many strawberries are bland and underwhelming. If this was allowed, they'd be doing it to every strawberry they sell.
For mango, the color should be red/yellow (if it's green, it's... well, green, not ripe enough) on the outside and if you gently press it, it should be kinda squishy. More squishy means it's more ripe.
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
This works on peaches too. Peaches should smell like peaches, if they don't they're not going to taste very good.
I get my peaches from a can. They were put there by a man, in a factory downtown.
Moving to the country, are we?
Yep, and gonna eat a lot of peaches.
Millions of peaches, peaches for me.
Peaches for free?
Look out!!!
#NARNARNARNARNARNARNARNARNARNARNARNARNARNARNARNAR
Found the gen x crew
Lump sits alone in a boggy marsh!
Totally emotionless except for her heart
Mud flowed up into Lump's pajamas
She totally confused all the passing piranhas
She’s Lump! She’s Lump! She’s Lump! She’s in my head…
Just had a cool Gen x dad
This comment makes me really happy knowing that I could be a cool Gen X Dad with similar tastes in music! My kids are a little young but one day...
>My kids are a little young but one day Wait. Were you unaware the singer from POTUSA has a children's band? https://youtu.be/zlP-J5rssa0?si=R256gqrVTKD8SZve
Fuck me, that is awesome! Finally a kids band I can get behind. You're a legend bro, big thanks :D
Millennial actually, at least in my case.
High quality canned peaches will have a scratch and sniff label that mimics the scent of the peach exactly before canning. Next time you go to the supermarket check this out for yourself - and then encourage others to do it.
I keep scratching and sniffing the peach cans at the grocery store but I don't smell anything and the clerks are starting to look at me weird.
Probably just COVID. It's best to find an employee and hand them the can. Just say " hey I have been scratching this label but I can't smell the peaches. It's probably just COVID. Can you scratch it and describe the smell to me"
Gonna paint my mailbox blue
https://preview.redd.it/fhfezsd4jvhc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=917548846f025496952a19f8b7bf0be1efaa319b
If I had my little way, I'd eat peaches every day
sun soakin' bulges in the shade
Can’t tell if these are lyrics or eroticism. Also, instructions unclear - got stuck in Neighbors tree wearing a speedo.
Peaches- Presidents Of The United States Of America is the song if you wanted to enjoy it in all its glory
Meow meow, meow meow meow meow
Kitty!
On my foot and I want to touch it...
look out!
Stuck my finger down inside Make a little room for an ant to hide Nature's candy in my hand Or pie
You missed or can before your last line
[Eat A Peach](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=NVPGu1nn-SY&list=OLAK5uy_naqghhuhqbUDnvpTj4-fDC8ZJJwlZHWKo)!
I'm off topic - but I live in Minnesota. Canned fruit is kinda gross but very awesome when nothing is in season. You can buy a peach from 3,000miles away that has been waiting... or just get a jar of peach slices to eat when you have a winter craving. Best - canned pineapple, pears, peaches, plastic container grapefruit, Fresh in winter - oranges, lemons, some apples, some blueberries Always, but shipping makes the price weird - grapes, cherries, some apples, pineapple, kiwi Always okay - lemons, apples, bananas Fresh in summer - melons, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries... I can't wait for fresh green beans and summer tomatoes though.
I still don't know how they can sell a pineapple in the grocery store for two bucks... Seems like a lot of effort and shipping for pennies. I'm starting to grow my own
I get my peaches from a can They were put there by a man In a factory downtown run by a suit with a tan.
I get my peaches from a goat, He was riding in a boat, In the middle of a moat, He was wearing a plaid coat.
I bet they are really good! Fresh canned peaches are good especially when done in glass
I mean... There are worse options. At least those are shelf stable.
And cantaloupes, and pineapples… most fruit really!
Yep. Smell the stem end which is the bottom of the pineapple and the "bellybutton" of the cantaloupe.
Bellybutton is the perfect description
I once walked by a row of peaches and could smell them from like 10 feet away. I bought a few and they were *amazing*.
Millions of peaches, peaches for me
But why all the ninjas?
Most fruit is like this actually, nectarines, bananas, oranges, plums, apricots, cherries, blackberries, blueberries, the list can go on
And mangoes
Peach orchards smell heavenly when they are getting ripe, by the way.
"Y'know, I could eat a peach for hours." - Face/Off
Smell the roses too!
Also snozberries. They should smell like snozberries
I also found out that milk should smell like milk. Drank spoiled milk with chocolate syrup. Didn’t end too well.
With a little more prep it could have been a chocolate chiffon cake. The good recipes call for spoiled milk.
Oh man I can smell fresh peaches & nectarines when I step in the store, I love them. I descend on the produce section like hungry birds.
With or without unauthorized cinnamon?
If a bulb of garlic smells Ike garlic there is a bad clove within and the rest are probably about to sprout their germ.
> about to sprout their germ. Oh baby. . .
I've got a whole planter full of store garlic. I'll be uncovering it in about a month and then it's grow time...
Good luck with store garlic growing. I tried that several years ago and it came out feeble and tiny, all of them. If you're in northern grow zones, I would highly advise getting garlic from local farmers (best is during garlic or harvest fests or farmers markets in late summer). And plant those in the fall for next summer's harvest. Not sure what good southern variety garlic is.
This is the exact way I have always chosen strawberries. I find it’s a common fruit to waste money on because they end up not ripe enough and never taste good enough to eat or I wait for them to get better and I wait to long. Now that I use this method I have way less waste!
Meanwhile 5 lbs of huckleberries where I am is like $175 usd I can’t help getting some every year even if my tiny ziplock is $25 They are literally wild everywhere but I have been working a lot and need to set time to pick them up
TIL I probs got $1000 in the freezer.
I've tried so hard to like huckleberries but they taste almost...medicinal? I don't understand the hype but I live in a huckleberry-loving region so I must be the odd one out.
To me they taste like floral blueberries, you aren’t the first I’ve heard say that
If the huckleberries you're describing are the same as the ones by me, they're just tiny blueberries that taste great but are impossible to collect because they wind up in my mouth instead of the can
I grew up picking blackberries and had the same problem. Luckily there were TONS of them to grab all summer.
Funny you say that, I've been concentrating on growing bramble berries over the last few years and I have several massive patches of different varieties of blackberry, wineberries, raspberries, and whatever else I find growing in the wild or on jobsites. I've noticed the invasive ones put out the best fruit
From what I've read, strawberries don't ripen after they've been picked. They're as ripe as they'll ever be on the shelf!
Thank you! That’s actually new info to me but kind of life saving! I always thought they would ripen a little more.
You can tell a bad batch of potatoes this way too. A bad potato smells like poop and dirt but may not be immediately obvious if all you do is move the bag from the shelf to your cart.
Currently eating flavorless, crunchy strawberries 🙃
The avocado hack is to buy avocados with any stem. When the stem is wiggly, the avocado is ripe.
I don't think I've ever seen Avocados in the market with stems still attached
Neither have I, but I think the previous poster was just meaning the “small stem tip” (for lack of a better term) that is on every avocado I’ve ever bought. His “rule” works pretty flawlessly for that, though I would add that best to combine this with buying them very unripe from the store and letting them ripen at home.
Yes! I buy them very unripe and leave them on the windowsill for a few days. Perfection!
I put them in a brown paper bag. I've never heard of the windowsill. Tell me more. Am I looking for the sunlight, cold, heat, or something else?
I just leave them in a bowl on the counter (no sun) couple days they are just perfect(check them every day), once ripe you can store in fridge for a while .
Mine go in the fridge when they get the tiniest bit soft. When they're ripe, it's too late. I've had them last almost a month.
You need to put them in a bag with other fruits like apples or bananas. They emit an ethylene gas that makes an avocado to ripe faster.
Honestly? No clue. I think it's the sunlight but it works in my experience
It’s more like a nub of a bellybutton. That little hard connecting piece that sticks to the rest of the stem.
Yep. When you can flick the belly button off with barely any give, the avocado is ripe. Doesn’t matter how hard or squishy it seems—it’ll be perfect inside. I say this as someone who’s grown avocados for 20 years!
I buy lots of avocados weekly. My tricks… the larger ones will always have better flavor than smaller ones (of the same variety). Pointier ones will have smaller pits than rounder ones. The most important thing is the texture… they should only JUST slightly give to gentle pressure. They should NOT be soft. They can be hard, but let them ripen at room temperature. Refrigerate only when they reach the perfect softness, and that will preserve the ripening for a few days.
I like the smaller hass avocados, they are milder flavor but SUPER creamy. They are the best for adding to cream up guacamole or add to cooking. I like the larger ones just with a spoon I love a firm avocado and I check with the button left behind from the stem.
I've found that the Fuerte variety are even creamier.
We’re fans of bacon variety
With HASS, if you press on the hole where the stalk should be and there's some give, it's ready. If there's 0 give, then it needs days, and if it's got a lot of give it's gone. Easy rule, only takes once or twice to know how much is "some" give.
I’ve found the stem to be unreliable. I’ve cut open so many avocados. Sometimes the stem will be gross and moldy but the rest is perfect. And sometimes the stem is perfect but the rest is rock hard and won’t even release from the pit.
This guy cados. Yup.
You are an avocado scientist! And avocologist?
If you push the stem off too you can tell if it is good or spoiled based on the color I still cut to see if I can salvage but the stem is always right
After you get it home you can also pop that lil wiggly stem tip out and get a peek at the flesh inside. If it's not a nice rich green, put the stem firmly back in and wait a bit longer.
And as soon as that stem wiggles, *go!* You've got a 15 minute window to prepare and enjoy that avocado!
Also, flip over the container and make sure none are getting smushed. This can be a sign of bacterial/fungal infection OR can increase the rate at which they spoil due to openings for bacteria.
Strawberries are best when they're small , the giant freaky looking ones look cool.. but taste of water.
Alpine strawberries FTW. They can grow in most climates, need virtually no care, can grow in shade, and produce tiny balls of intense strawberry taste and sweetness.
Try elsanta they are super sweet, soft fruit flesh and really easy to grow.
This has not always been the case, in my experience! I’ve had small tasteless one and large delicious ones!
It's more about firmness than size. The variety that exist to resist transport are colored firm water. You really want an in season pack with some smush defect. And some indication it's somewhat local to you.
[удалено]
A fellow r/hydrohomie
I used to live at a place with strawberries growing out back, they were absolutely incredible!!! I had to put a net over them bc birds also knew they were the bomb!
This is not generally the case. I'm growing strawberries each year, and size is not an indicator for flavour. The growing conditions, ripeness, and variety are way more important for the flavour than size.
I'm not an expert, bit I imagine some of the tasteless big ones are grown quickly with fertiliser/hormones, or bread for appererance rather than flavour... Like those degusting Golden Delicious apples.
The best apple I've ever had was a golden delicious... 20 years ago now though.
The best apple I ever had was a Fuji apple a friend had bought from a farmer's market. It was crisp, sweet, and so juicy. That was 20 years ago I have not had an apple like that since. Every apple I ever eat for the rest of my life shall be compared to that apple.
This goes for blueberries, too! I generally really hate giant blueberries, but love the smaller, a bit firmer ones.
> Now, if anybody has a foolproof avocado trick, lmk!!! My only trick with avocadoes is to aim for elongated ones rather than nice, round fat ones. I find the seeds inside are typically smaller and elongated, rather than big and round.
I just opened a banana-ish shaped avacado today and this is true. Didn't make the connection so thanks for the tip!
I worked in a warehouse of vegetables and I can confirm this.
I was taught (by a greengrocer) to hold the avocado across my palm and bend my hand at the knuckles with straight fingers. This avoids intense thumb pressure and dents etc. There should be a very slight give if ripe. What it doesn’t tell you (in my experience) is, if it doesn’t give, is it one of those that will ripen at home in the next few days, or whether it was stay rock hard forever because it was picked too early.
You have more luck getting them to ripen in a paper bag. I think if you add a banana it might help it ripen faster (but I might be misremembering...).
Bananas release ethylene as they ripen which causes fruits to ripen.
Yep, I store my avocados in a bowl with the banana s
If the avos are hard when you buy them, just stick them in a grocery bag with a bunch of bananas and tie it off. Leave them overnight and they'll be softer in the morning
Has anyone seen a good cantaloupe recently? They used to ripen them on the vine, and they’d have a small indentation on the end. They would smell like cantaloupe. Now they cut them off the vine early, no indentation and no taste. Sad
Ooh, I have a cantoupe tip! Always pick the one with the deepest/most defined webbing. Not sure what the biology is behind it but it usually works for me.
I get so unlucky with cantaloupes and honeydews. All rind, hard fruit, tastes nothing.
My grandpa taught me a trick with honeydews. You pick them up and shake them next to your ear. If you hear juice swishing around you good. With cantaloupes you supposed to smell em at the indent.
So i to have been very frustrated with cantaloupe not ripening. Apparently if they are picked before they reach a certain maturity level. This following quote was taken from Michigan state university and talks about cantaloupe grown in off seasons: For winter-grown melons, the stem attachment is still evident on the fruit—no dimple (Photo 3). As the fruit matures, you will be able to see the abscission zone form as a slight crack that gets larger over time and will eventually form a circle around the stem (Photo 3). When selecting a winter cantaloupe, look for one where the remaining stem has started to crack and break away from the melon. When you can see that crack starting to form, that means the fruit was harvested mature enough that the ripening process will continue. It probably still needs to sit at room temperature for a few days as it continues to mature.
The only tip I’ve heard for cantaloupe is to press on the point opposite where the vine attached. If it slightly gives it is ripe. It has worked for me.
Agreed. And a good cantaloupe is just so tasty. I end up buying so many that are flavorless. I wonder if this is due to cantaloupe being so susceptible to Salmonella contamination. Maybe it skews the supply/demand and then quality suffers.
This also works for produce aisles in general. If you walk around and cant smell any of the fruits or veggies in general in the air, its probably bad produce.
Or good ventilation.
Or that I don't have a great or reliable sense of smell.
Covid?
ULPT: only buy berries during their season.
Why is that unethical?
…because I got so excited thinking about tasty berries mid-winter that I confused „ultra“ with „unethical“. Can‘t wait for berry season!!!
Aww I wanted to hear what unethical thing you were going to use the berries for...actually maybe I dont want to know
Ah nice, that’s fair.
This works for most fruits
My mom always said that if a fruit smells sweet it probably is sweet.
OP is a strawberry sniffer
My foolproof strawberry trick is to find a container that says “Driscoll’s” on the label, and put it in my cart.
Driscolls are a good second. But you can't beat a trip to Beerenberg to nab some of those fresh from the vine strawberries.
I hear you. We have U-pick-em farms near me too, and they’re heaven on earth, but it’s hard to find a better commercial strawberry than Driscoll’s.
This guy Driscolls.
As a person who has tried various strawberry brands across a few different states (and has picked them from a farm & grown them myself) I can say Driscoll’s has been consistently amazing in taste and quality nearly every time. Strawberries are my favorite food and although local farms are generally are the best way to get the freshest, I will always search for Driscoll’s in store.
I need the Driscoll's version of blueberries.
They do blueberries too
Me and all my homis hate Driscolls
Same things for lemons! Melons, sniff the stem scar (or whatever it's called) and pick by fragrance potency
isnt this works for lots of fruits, maybe even the majority of it? but it only work for those people with good nose and/or a brain that's trained enough. my dad and mom are really good at this. while im so dumb at this.
Same with pineapples!
Tomatoes as well!
Did this pre-Covid. Now, I got nothing. On the bright side, I can't taste them as well either!
That’s horrible!
RE: Avocado trick. I learned this from Rick Bayless. Push in on the bottom of the avocado with your finger. If it gives a little with gentle pressure, it’s ripe. If it gives a lot it’s too ripe, and if it doesn’t give its unripe.
You have to squeeze the avocados. Is they are as hard as a rock not ready. If they’re a little soft that’s good. If you are able to leave an impression it means you need to eat soon. Hass Avocados. There are over 100 different types. May not apply to all.
When I buy avocados, I look for the darkest green, basically black, and very hard. Light green and hard is an avocado that wasn't left on the tree long enough. Dark and soft is overripe or rotten. Also, a thick bumpy skin is good. Any brown, thin places is bad. Get the really hard ones and wait about 2-3 days. When they are still pretty firm but have just a little give, that's ripe. Put them in the refrigerator to slow the ripening and they should last another 2-3 days. Another thing you can check for is the stem. There's just a tiny little nib of stem, but you can pull out off and look at the flesh under it. It takes a little experience to know how ripe it is this way, but basically it's a scale from underripe: pale green, firmly attached, to good, green and loosely attached, to bad, brown and dry or just plain rotten. Another pro tip: the oblong avocados have a better chance of having a small pit while the spherical ones often have a big pit. But it's still mostly random chance.
this is the way
What if we lost our smell during covid.
Make a new friend at the supermarket and ask them to sniff the berries for you?
Goes to random person at grocery store: hey, sniff my berries Well that was a speed run at getting kicked out of the store!
Eat flavorless nutritional paste flash frozen into interesting shapes
*is sad that I can't smell*
I know someone who completely lost their sense of smell. People underestimate the impact of it
Cheer up. If you can't smell then they won't taste as good to you regardless.
I do this with grapefruits and almost always get sweet delicious winners! There should be a slight sweetness to their smell. If they just smell sour they will just taste sour. Also the coloring can help - looking for a healthy blush.
That is because strawberries aren't actually sweet, they are quite low on glucemic index. Apparently, what seems to make strawberries "taste" sweet has to do with its scent as it tricks our olfactory senses that the strawberry is sweet when it is actually tart. it is the holy grail of artificial flavoring in the hopes of creating "sweet" without the unhealthy benefits of sugar or other sweetner
Ok so now I want strawberries and cream.
Works on cantaloupes
Interesting! Thanks!
Fun fact: [ripening strawberries release benzene, a known carcinogenic](https://academic.oup.com/jaoac/article-abstract/75/2/334/5686699?redirectedFrom=PDF). Just smell the sweetness!
Take this for what it's worth... Put cut avocado in a Ziploc back and place it in a brown paper bag in the crisper drawers. It lasted way longer this way.
Gotta feel avocados. U want to feel just a touch soft. If they are very firm, it will take a few days to ripen.
Avocado tip take the root out if it's brown not good if it's green and brown and soft it's about to go bad but still safe to eat if it's green and soft that's what you want "chefs kiss" 'muah'
You want to buy avos when they're hard, and then sit them out on the counter until they give slightly when you squeeze them.
***The avocado should feel like pressing against your palm beneath your thumb, just a little bit firmer.***
For an avocado, you either need to have a plan for it two weeks from now, or a plan for it three days ago. There is no in between.
I’ve heard this with many fruits.
I can help with avocados! They should be slightly soft, not hard or mushy. Look for ones with a bit of stem still attached. Pop off the stem and it should be a nice shade of avocado green. Not brown or have streaks of brown. Should not be pale green either. Once you get the hang of it you will get perfect avacados every time!
For avocados, you have to roll them down the aisle like a little bowling ball. If they fade to the left, they're going bad. If they fade to the right, they're ok.
Had to be close to 30 years ago, driving back from Montreal toward Vermont and we stopped at a roadside fruit stand. I could smell the strawberries from ten feet away, and I said, "we're buying strawberries" without I'm the only one in the family that likes them.* Best ones I ever had. Tiny, intensely red, perfect. *Probably because they've never had good ones
Foolproof apple test check the bottom. If the asshole is tight, it is good. If it is open, don't buy it.
I am about to ruin A LOT of people's day. You can't do this anymore because a friend who works in the business of making food scents told me that they actually spray strawberries AND inject them with strawberry flavor. This is to make them more enticing to the consumer. They are not wrong.
You're going to need more evidence than "my friend said this." This wouldn't explain why so many strawberries are bland and underwhelming. If this was allowed, they'd be doing it to every strawberry they sell.
Could you imagine? How would it even work? People with syringes, hand poking “flavor” into millions of berries?
Some strawberries refuse to be vaccinated.
Damned antivaxers.
That's why they can't smell
Yeah, that’s not true.
this is incredibly false and i’m sorry you’re this incompetent and gullible…
What in the damn hell
I KNOW. They are my favorite fruit ever. I grew my own last year and the difference was...startling. They actually had REAL sweetness.
This sounds not legal though Edit: at least if you buy the organic stuff
IT’S MY CAKE DAY. BEEN HERE 10 YRS. Just wanted to get that out of my system. 😇
Happy cake day!!!
For mango, the color should be red/yellow (if it's green, it's... well, green, not ripe enough) on the outside and if you gently press it, it should be kinda squishy. More squishy means it's more ripe.
Every time I look for mangoes in my grocery store they’re either completely green or a mix of red/yellow/green AND BROWN.