My Beef With Fruit

Here's my issue with fruit: in theory fruit is succulent, healthy and delectable but in reality it's annoying, erratic, and above all, really, really sticky. Let me explain.

First, we might as well admit that fruit is having a pretty good run this millennium. Basically, it's the Barack Obama of foods. Fruit is hip, trendy, loved by tastemakers of all ages, and touted by nutritionists as being a rare food group that's both healthful and yummy. Fruit is a superstar. When the groups on the Food Pyramid get together for drinks, Fruit saunters into the room with aviators and $950 designer jeans leaving the other food groups insanely jealous and hopelessly out of fashion. I can just see Grains and Meat resentfully leaning into their Budweisers as Fruit orders some slick Mojito while flirting with the sexy tigress pouring drinks behind the bar. 

Fruit isn't as dependable as a hearty rib eye with a side of garlic mashed potatoes or a flaky, fresh-baked croissant. You know what you're getting with those food items: something that's delicious ten times out of ten. With fruit, the quality of your eating experience always depends on a variety of factors that may or may not break in your favor. Is the piece of fruit sufficiently ripe? Or has it gestated too long in the wooden bowl on your kitchen table, leaving it rotten and inedible (and do we really want to be gestating stuff in the kitchen)? The most horrid aspect of fruit rot is that it often conceals its trauma under the guise of healthy-looking exterior skin. How many times have you bitten into a peach only to end up with the disagreeable condition that I like to call "Mr. Mealy Mouth?" How many times have you cracked open a banana only to find a horrid mass of blackish, rotting goo that looks like it should be stored in a lead-lined 50 gallon drum two miles below the Nevada desert? Some say that this is a normal process of nature, but I find the constant need to monitor fruit's well-being like an at-risk teenager very, very troubling.

Then there's the whole inconvenience angle. It's an understatement to say that fruit requires a lot of preparation before it's ready for consumption. You need to wash grapes and berries. Often there's a peel of some sort, a pit, or a rash of icky seeds that need to be dealt with. Picture giving a cantaloupe to someone who just arrived on planet Earth. Is this object something yummy to eat, or is it more appropriate to stash in in your bowling bag for the next trip down to the lanes? Sure, I'm happy to give you a taste...just let me cut it apart in using 12 knives, a towel, a scooper, an obscure washing ritual, a compost baggie, and an earnest prayer to my Holy Maker. Likewise for grapefruit -- hey it's really good, but to enjoy it in all its glory, you have to mince it into tiny triangles like a heart surgeon with a special pointy spoon. Don't even get me started on kiwi...an exceptional treat, if you can get past the brown fur that sticks to the meat of the fruit like stucco on a cement wall. To be honest, you'll probably only get a bite or two before slicing your thumb off, so enjoy!

Even the piece of fruit tenderly brought to perfect ripeness presents myriad difficulty. Bite into any healthy, workaday peach and more likely than not a stream of sticky juice is going to cascade down your mouth and/or shirt sleeves. In isolated conditions, say in a laboratory vacuum, you'd be able to experience the admittedly exceptional taste afforded by a fresh peach without this inconvenience. But in the world we live in, a bite into a peach equals leaky byproduct that will stick to your skin like plumber's epoxy.

Perhaps there is hope for fruit. I hear that smart-guy scientists are working on genetic engineering feats that we can't even conceive of. And there are enough entrepreneurs out there willing to do anything for a buck that any useful idea is sure to make it to market. So here's a suggestion: instead of the next Google or Facebook, what the world really needs is an orange peel that doesn't get stuck underneath your fingernails.

Comments

[Samantha]

hmmm... perhaps you ought to dip that 'forbidden fruit' into chocolate: http://growingupgourmet.blogspot.com/2008/07/summers-candy-bar.html

Or better, find someone to pack you cut-up peaches and pre-peeled bananas in your lunch box. Oh wait. You already have that someone.

[Seth Barnes]

True, I often don't have to brave the process of cutting up my own fruit. Still, the idea icks me out.

[Mom]

Hmmmmmmmm...And grandpop cut it up for you all those summers on the Cape...