I'm Throwing Out A Lot Of Fruit -- What To Do?

Joined
Nov 21, 2015
Messages
10,501
(in the Northern Hemisphere)

Grapes seem to be too early on the shelves. Their skin is thick, they aren't good. Not ripe.

Melons can be wonderful.

Mangos if left to ripen can be great.

Some of the cherries were really good, and cherry season is ending of course.

I'm throwing out nectarines that don't ripen properly, the grapes, the bad this and the bad that.

The other day I ate a bunch of those not-good grapes, and got a serotonin headache the next day. I think that's cause and effect, can't prove it but it seems like it.

Ditto with mangoes that I ate even though they weren't ripe (they were frozen actually, I should know better, they freeze and bag and sell unripe mangoes and unripe fruit as a rule. Requires cooking...)

I am not sure what I'll do when summer ends. I am really dependent on a lot of fruit these days but it has to be good and ripe fruit.
 

lindsay

Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2013
Messages
973
Location
United States
The only fruit I consume all year round is oranges & mandarins. I've almost entirely stopped bothering with other fruits because if they aren't perfect, they don't sit well for me. I love melon, but melon doesn't always like me. I love grapes, and can sometimes digest them well, but they are expensive and sometimes you just get a bag of the mushies.

I adore blueberries - they don't feel the same and tend to sit like rocks. Mangoes I can eat if cooked slightly - I used to make warm smoothies with milk and mango and loved the combo.

However, I noticed that my potassium intake is not up to par and melons are high in potassium, so I came up with a solution - puree the melon and strain out the pulp, leaving melon water. It's high in potassium. They actually have started selling watermelon water - it's delicious, but pricey. Probably better to make your own. I would still stick to well ripened melons though.

Oranges are not in season, but I found some mandarins from Australia that are wonderfully ripe and it is the season there currently.

I would like to love fruit, but it hasn't always sat well, even if I wash things real good with vinegar & baking soda. Generally, I tolerate citrus fruits and occasional grapes and cherries. OJ & oranges are my staples fruit wise. And some dried fruits. I really like cooked fruits with added sugar too - they digest much better and are delicious!

Nine times out of ten, I would actually choose vegetables over fruits - or pickles :)
 

schultz

Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2014
Messages
2,653
It sucks getting bad fruit! I pay for the pricey fruit at the store if it is consistent. I'm in Canada and I've bee. Eating cherries, watermelon, Santa Claus melon, Kent and ataulfo mango, banana (I just reintroduced this), grapes and a cantaloupe called sugar kiss which is always really sweet and worth the $4. My friend checked the brix and it was 17 which is very high for melon. 17g sugar per 100g juice. Sometimes the store near me has cherimoya and atemoyas and I usually buy those too, though they are like $4 each. Life is short.

Crappy fruit I feed to my pig and chickens.

In the winter I eat potatoes. It's winter fruit.
 

SarahBeara

Member
Joined
Sep 9, 2015
Messages
176
Cook it! You can freeze fruit stewed with sugar it keeps quite well.

In my experience cooked fruit, even if slightly unripe digests really well.

Homemade vanilla custard goes really well with it and is also quite peaty.

Or make homemade jam.
 

BastiFuntasty

Member
Joined
Jun 9, 2015
Messages
225
Fruits are so annoying here in the northern hemisphere. The ripe ones are loaded with toxins and the organics are most often so poorly ripened.
I have found apples mark to be OK, it's just pasteurised and cost much less than apples itself.
 

tara

Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2014
Messages
10,368
Cook it! You can freeze fruit stewed with sugar it keeps quite well.
+1
Can also add dissolved gelatine to stewed fruit to make nice jellies.
Or if you are eating well cooked starch, you can add rice flour or potato or casava starch or similar to thicken it up.
 

What-a-Riot

Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2015
Messages
154
I like banana chips. They're store bought, but it's bananas made crisp in coconut oil with some sugar. The added sugar isn't really necessary, and I've been thinking of trying to lightly slices of pear, apples, etc. That would make things keep better, granted it also makes it an entirely different foodstuff
 

baggywrinkle

Member
Joined
Jan 21, 2015
Messages
50
Location
auckland/taranaki new zealand
we are now entering orange and kiwifruit season ,it being winter here in New Zealand,so plenty of orange juice
having just finished the feijoa season I freeze lots of pulp for deserts
the summer has my favourites being plums mangos peaches
But also during winter I consume canned and glass bottled fruit
 

Rafe

Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2016
Messages
737
The small, yellow mangoes from Mexico, and organic nectarines (sometimes) were all I could find ripe & tasty. I had a few figs, which tasted good but iirc they are high in serotonin.

I tried guava (seedy), jackfruit (strong tasting), and dragonfruit (couldn't detect any taste at all) after reading @Dan Wich's fruit guide, but no great finds. Guava juice has been good to me.
 

Travis

Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2016
Messages
3,189
In the Midwest USA, Pineapples, Apples, and Papaya seems to be the most consistent.
Mangoes, Stone Fruit, Watermelon, And Berries tend to be "all over the place" in terms of organoleptic qualities .

The most consistently good Pineapple is Del Monte by far. Dole Pineapples come from 4 different countries which can be discerned by reading the fine print.
Carribean Papaya is great. Asiatic Papaya is "iffy".
And Fuji Apples are my favorite and keep for months.
Oranges are good now, though they were very crappy and dry during the winter.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom