A9

Elaine Mandrona

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With some things, we know without a doubt that they are ripe. Old gym shoes and exercise clothing come to mind. With fruits and vegetables, determining ripeness can be a little trickier. There is nothing more disappointing that bringing home a nice fat watermelon and cutting it open only to find it mealy in texture and decidedly lacking in sweetness.

Corn can be another disappointment - tiny immature kernels with no flavor, or worse yet old starchy kernels - food fit only for livestock. The transition from ripe to rotten or past the "better by" date can progress pretty quickly, so timing is of the essence.

Ripe means full maturity with a high concentration of natural sugars and enzymes, good texture and optimum nutrition. Rotten means breaking down and decomposing - the sugars turned to alcohol. Molds and microorganisms have taken possession of the food for their dinner.

After harvest, foods continue to respire - use oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. Some foods also give off ethylene gas (in particular tomatoes, apples, bananas and citrus fruits.) Ethylene gas acts on plant hormones to stimulate ripening. The more they ripen the more ethylene gas they give off, and ripening proceeds even faster.

Ripening causes the pectin in the structure to break down eventually resulting in a mushy texture. So how do you tell if it's immature, ripe or rotten? In nature, it's easy to tell. The fruit comes off the plant easily or has just fallen recently to the ground.

But when food is removed from its source and is lined up on the shelves for sale, it can challenge your powers of discernment. Some people have an intuitive feel about it.

There are also some general rules to follow. Fruit that is hard is probably unripe. Fruit or vegetables that are mushy or have brown spots (enzymatic oxidation) are on the road to rotten-ness. Use your senses. Think color, texture and aroma.

More specifically, watermelons should not sound hollow when you knock on them and should be a deep green in color. Corn should have dark green husks that are not too dry, but the tassels should be brown and dry. Some people peel the husks just a bit and peep inside to see if the kernels are fully formed and still retaining moisture. Peel and peep.

With avocados, the skin should be dark green but not black with no brown spots. It should not feel mushy in the hand. When cut open at home, the pit should be easy to remove. Winter squash should have a more hollow sound when knocked and the stem should be a dry brown. If frost has killed the vine, the squash is probably mature.

Tomatoes should be rich in color, not feel too hard and smell tomato-y. Peas in a pod should not be dried out and brown and edible pod peas and green and yellow beans should snap and not be limp.

Fruits like cherries, peaches, pears, nectarines, plums should have good, rich color, be not too hard in the hand, have no brown blemishes, be not too soft and they should smell good. Apples, which will be in abundance soon, definitely should not feel soft under the skin, should not dent easily and should smell like apples.

You can hasten ripening by putting produce in a paper bag or wrapping in newspaper. This works well for tomatoes, especially.

A wise person once said that maturity takes a lifetime. It's true of all growing things, fruits and vegetables included. It's a real skill to choose them and eat them at their peak and well worth the effort. Full ripeness means full enjoyment.

* Elaine Mandrona is a locally based registered nutritional consulting practicioner who advises people on nutrition and weight loss, as well as a Nutritionist with Healthier for Life Nutrition and Weight Loss Centre. If you would like to reach her, please phone 874-8142.