Picky Eaters: Fresh Produce Tastes Better!

Another reason I have become increasingly interested in eating locally and growing my own food is something that I have known without knowing since I was about 8 years old: fresh food tastes better!

I say knowing without knowing because I never really gave it much thought. However, as I was reading This Organic Life recently, Gussow mentioning how fruits and vegetables from the grocery store are often tasteless, though perhaps uniform while the foods from her garden had strong, vibrant tastes that surprised many of her visitors and neighbors throughout the years. As I read all of this, it suddenly dawned on me that I had known this all along, but I’d chalked it up to different things.

From the time I was born until college when my Grandmother began to lose her good health, weeks of my summers, spring vacations and winter vacations were spent at my Grandparent’s home in rural Iowa. My Grandfather had a vegetable/fruit garden in the expansive yard. He grew pumpkins and watermelon, rhubarb and strawberries; he even had a grape vine and a couple fruit trees. I don’t remember what the other fruit trees were, but one was a plum tree. This particular summer, I happened to be visiting when the plums were ripe. Being a very picky eater, I was often reluctant to try new things. I never thought I liked plums, but the idea of picking something and eating it was too novel to pass up. Turns out I loved these plums. I ate plum after plum and raved about them to my parents. When I returned home, my Mom bought some plums at the store for me. Guess what? I didn’t like them. I don’t remember what they tasted like exactly, but I can distinctly remember being disappointed. My Mom bought some more, thinking perhaps we’d gotten a bad batch. No luck, I no longer liked plums. My Mom chalked it up to me being difficult and I suppose I was used to getting tired of certain foods after eating too much. Looking back, I would say the difference is the fact that the plums I ate at Grandma’s were deliciously fresh. The ones from the store were from states and miles away, bred specifically for travel and color, rather than taste.

The next two examples are a little more recent. The first involves a trip to a local apple orchard. I saw a commercial and thought it would be a fun day outing for me and The Boyfriend. We picked two big bags of apples. Now, I love a good apple, but I had always thought they were hard to find. A lot of the times I would buy an apple at the store only one out of the couple would be sweet and tangy enough for my picky tastes. I thought it was me being picky. I ate apple after apple of this batch from the orchard, and none had that grainy, tasteless experience that I had grown used to with apples. These were delicious. Because they were in season and fresh.

Then, this November, I was lucky enough to travel to Hawaii for my parents 25th anniversary. I had grown up eating pineapple out of a can. I’d changed from the syrup to the in its own juices, but there was something odd about how I liked pineapple—only from a can. I thought the “fresh” pineapple from the store was too… something. Low and behold we get to Hawaii and I decide I better try some fresh pineapple in Hawaii, just to know I ate pineapple in Hawaii. Imagine my surprise when I loved it. Every day I had some fresh pineapple. I exclaimed to my Mom how I had made this miraculous change, and she just shrugged and said, “of course it tastes better, it’s grown right here.”
Then, reading Gussow’s book I finally put all the dots together. I’d often been afraid of “fresh” because I wasn’t sure I would like it. I don’t like tomatoes or almost any green vegetable (cucumbers and green beans are about all I can stand), I don’t like beans, peaches or even potatoes, but I’m willing to try the fresh versions now to see if maybe what I don’t like is the “jet-lagged” produce from superstores. I have a feeling I still won’t like peaches or spinach, but being willing to try is exciting enough for a picky eater like me.