Rotten or Ripe
SUSAN MCFIE asks what on earth has happened to our fruit
For some, memories of Christmas include waking to a stocking at the end of the bed stuffed with inexpensive treats. Deep down in the toe there was often a pack of gold wrapped chocolate coins and a delicious orange. Christmas is of course the season for many varieties of oranges – including satsumas, clementines and tangerines. This is when they’re at their best, or at least it used to be. But what happened to our fruit?
Under the skin should be plump, bright orange segments full of delicious juice. But this is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. This Christmas we bought dozens of easy peel varieties from different stores. Incredibly, there was hardly an edible fruit amongst them.
At best, the inside revealed tell-tale, white, fibrous segments, a sure sign that it has dried out and has almost no taste at all. And no taste inevitably means little if any nutrients. Perhaps even worse than the dried out, tasteless fruit was the number of apparently ripe oranges that smelt bitter and contained blue mould. Some simply disintegrated into liquid mush.
Artificial Ripening
Of course it’s not just oranges. Supermarkets have trained us to forget that fruit and vegetables have seasons. Or did we train them? If we fancy strawberries and cream in January, then we expect to find them on the shelves. But there is actually a price to pay and it may be bigger than we imagined. In order to speed up production, avoid potential losses from transportation delays and adverse weather conditions, most fruits are picked well before they are ready and then subjected to artificial ripening with various chemicals.
We may imagine that all the substances used to ripen fruit are harmless, but unfortunately this is not the case. The fact that these processes and some of the chemicals used pose a serious risk to the environment and human health has been known for decades.
There is a long list of chemicals used to turn a raw fruit into an apparently ripe one, none of which has to appear on any label. At one end of the scale there is the use of ethylene, which is considered a more natural approach to artificial ripening. This is a synthetic version of a hormone that the plant cells produce to trigger ripening. It is, however, quite expensive and requires specialised equipment.
Inevitably, some producers turn to cheaper and less safe chemicals including ethephon, ethylene glycol and calcium carbide. This last chemical is one of the most toxic products still in use – often illegally – and mainly in developing countries. Calcium carbide is an industrial compound of carbon and metal that reacts with water to produce acetylene gas, and which can be used to ripen fruit. Unfortunately the process also results in trace amounts of heavy metals including arsenic and other toxic and carcinogenic substances. Use of calcium carbide in the fruit trade is banned in many if not all countries, but the problem of illegal use remains.
Natural Ripening
The natural ripening of fruit is a highly complex process, not all of which is fully understood. In nature the process cannot begin until the plant reaches full maturity. As the fruit approaches the ripening phase, it begins to produce the plant hormone ethylene. This triggers many different processes; enzymes break down starches into sugars and soften the cell walls. This process develops the flavour, sweetness, aroma and texture we associate with natural fresh fruit.
And yet what is happening to most of our fruit is quite the opposite: fruits are harvested well before maturation and well before they are edible, then treated with synthetic ethylene or other substances, which trigger an artificial appearance of ripeness. This usually involves colour change from green to yellows, orange and red shades. These are indicators to humans and other creatures that the fruit is ripe and sweet and full of sustaining properties. The shock comes when we bite into our fruit only to find that it is hard, tasteless and altogether unpleasant.
I dread to think how much ends up in household bins for this reason. However in global terms, over-exposure to ethylene during storage and transportation results in the loss and wastage of 45-50% of all harvested fresh fruit and vegetable produce.
Death Hormone
We are encouraged to consume our five-a-day portions of fruit and vegetables to reduce the risk of chronic disease. Good advice of course: fruit and vegetables, unlike a processed snack bar, contain plenty of stuff needed for basic body functions: fibre, minerals, antioxidants and vitamins. Well at least they should. But a fruit that has been picked in its unripe state has not had time to go through the many stages needed to result in a nutritious food.
Our taste buds may warn us of this deficit, we may even find ourselves overeating in the search for the missing nutrients. Ethylene is sometimes known as the death hormone because the process of ripening leads ultimately to the process of decay. So perhaps it’s not surprising that exposure to excessive amounts of ripening agents can have a negative impact upon fruits and other plants.
An artificially ripened plant often looks good on the outside while remaining raw and inedible on the inside. If this isn’t weird enough, then we also have fruits that are rotting on the outside while still unripe inside. So how are we to know what has been done to our food? Well labelling would be a start. This happens in France where many supermarkets give information about chemicals used on food.
It’s true that most of these labels simply say that various chemicals have been used, without specifying which or at what stage of production. The substances could be pesticides, insecticides and herbicides in the growing period, but many more chemicals may be used after harvest. Fungicides and fumigants are often used to prevent or delay the appearance of mould and to control insects. Other chemicals are sometimes applied including algicides on berries, and of course the artificial ripening agents. This could amount to quite a cocktail.
Toxic Substances
Here in the UK there is no information about the chemicals used in production of fruit and vegetables – or about potential residue. Some products warn us to ‘wash before eating’ but they don’t say why. Our best option is to opt for organic food, which allows some chemicals in specific quantities but prohibits the use of most toxic substances.
So what about those Christmas oranges? The main reason for dried up fibrous flesh and lack of juice is the fruit staying on the tree too long. Was this why we had to throw all our oranges away? Well maybe, it seems that they may indeed be left on the tree beyond their best in order to coincide with market demands. However, in order to prevent the fruit from rotting, chemicals can also be used to delay maturation – a kind of artificial anti-ripening!
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…I work on the premise that if it has a thick skin you don’t have to do organic…your article on oranges has made me think…I get organic marmalade as you eat the oranges skin..but not organic oranges otherwise… definitely get organic tomatoes and strawberries, but only organic bananas to save the poor pickers from handling the toxins.