Is produce less reliably good?

[Anonymous]

I shop all over the place, high, low, small, big, and it's so rare for me to find very tasty fruit for instance that when I do it's like wow, this is an actual apple, this is an actual strawberry...but it's rare. Usually things do not have has much taste. I've been to the source for strawberries, pyo, in season, and don't find that it guarantees good taste. Had Rainier apples that were amazing and then the following week same brand apples taste bland.

[Anonymous]

I think there’s a lot of gmo stuff that’s fairly tasteless. I think they come up with varieties that resist pests, can do with less water, look more uniform and things like that, but taste suffers. I think there’s also a lot of hothouse and hydroponic stuff that is also tasteless. Finding a tomato that tastes of anything is a challenge.

[Anonymous]

I agree. My spouse is constantly low-key annoyed with me because I grouch about crappy produce all the time.

[Anonymous]

I haven't had a decent tomato in years. Not from the supermarket, not from the farmer's market, not from anywhere. Tomatoes used to have a sweetness that balanced their acidity. No longer.

[Anonymous]

Look around for local farm produce.

[Anonymous]

Yes it is. I shop at both farmers markets and grocery stores and a lot of it is pretty tasteless. Or maybe my taste buds are not the same. We were in Europe this summer and the melons, plums, strawberries, were so good and sweet.

Came back here bought melons at a farmers market, tasteless. Got at grocery story: same, like eating potatoes. So, yes, something is off.

I love corn here, at one market seller, and find the apples at the same seller also really good. But no luck with watermelons, melons, strawberries. Feels like a waste of money buying at markets cause it’s extra money for no extra taste (the strawberries smell much more aromatic but I usually need to add sugar to them.

[Anonymous]

And here is an answer: apparently this is what people in the US prefer
https://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10972140/fruits-vegetables-taste-better-europe

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look around for local farm produce.

I don't find that it helps. A couple years ago we stopped at a random fruit stand in California and had the most amazing strawberries: so sweet, juicy, full of flavor. Other strawberries since (including directly from a field) have not tasted anywhere near as good.

[Anonymous]

Oh absolutely. I miss produce from my country (Brazil). Everything just tastes so much better and it’s so much cheaper.

[Anonymous]

bad produce ALL the TIME at EVERY single store in the DMV.
Discusting apples, grapes, rotten avocados, forget about cantaloupe or or papaya IN season. It's a tragic mess.

[Anonymous]

The brand label on the produce you buy means nothing. Those companies are just the middlemen distributors who bulk-buy from whatever farm is selling the most product for the lowest price. You can buy two identical-looking pieces of fruit with the same label and they might have come from two different farms nowhere near each other.

Now that the growing season is mostly over in this country, a lot of what you're buying is coming from central and South America. These items are grown for durability during shipping and not for taste.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look around for local farm produce.

In November? Some places might still have produce for sale, but it isn't local. It probably came out of the same warehouse the grocery store produce came from.

[Anonymous]

Personally, I have found that Wegman's and Whole Foods have the best produce when it's in season. The other grocery stores are much more hit-or-miss. During the off-season, you really are stuck with produce that had to cross the Equator to get here.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Everything comes from too far away or even close is picked unripe because otherwise too much will be thrown out. Smaller farms and much more expensive produce in France tastes better. We also throw a lot more out so even cheap produce ends up being expensive and small towns only have Wallmart or other industrial food store. Capitalism and need for profit and growth gets you this instead of tasty things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think there’s a lot of gmo stuff that’s fairly tasteless. I think they come up with varieties that resist pests, can do with less water, look more uniform and things like that, but taste suffers. I think there’s also a lot of hothouse and hydroponic stuff that is also tasteless. Finding a tomato that tastes of anything is a challenge.

+1 Number one with a bullet is seedless watermelons. I couldn't find a seeded watermelon this summer to save my life, and I shopped in farmer's markets in three states!

My kindergartener tasted a piece of uncooked cut up zucchini when I was making dinner and said "it doesn't taste like anything, kind of like watermelon if it was not wet" and my heart broke. Imagine growing up in a world where "tasteless" is your basic understanding of watermelon!