Getting good fruit is tricky

Ripe pears are delicious

I feel like having a bit of a rant as getting good fruit is tricky these days.

We are having a bit of an economy drive and I’m still coming to terms with it.  IN fact I’m struggling as we seem to be getting cheaper fruit in these days and it’s just not up to scratch.

Why, what’s going on?

You might already know that I switched careers and I’m at my local authority these days, on a lower salary.  As if that wasn’t bad enough Rachel has been made redundant (from the same local authority!). We are normally pretty good with money, planning, giving, saving and budgeting our income and expenditure but this new situation is still settling down.

Knowing it’s always so easy to spend and less easy to save money, we’re lowering our expenditure these days as we don’t quite know how things will settle down.  One of the signs of this is being more careful with the food we buy.  While this is good, getting good fruit is tricky.

Fruit from cheaper supermarkets such as Aldi, Tesco and Morrison’s tends to be small, less ripe fruit.  You might think this is alright as it will ripen naturally at home.  Right? No, wrong!  Fruit from Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer is generally alright.   Waitrose is only occasionally used (nearest at Leighton Buzzard or Ampthill, Beds) and I have no complaints.

Often what happens is the fruit goes off and starts to rot before it ripens.  This applies with pears especially.  Other fruit affected are bananas, melon and peaches.

Even the fruit which is ready to eat is not perfect.  Blueberries and strawberries are often lacking in flavour, almost as if they have been forceable grown and not allowed to develop all the natural flavours and nutrients.

Smoothies from Aldi are okay but a bit limited in the range.  As you might know, Innocent smoothies are my favourite but they are considerably more expensive – but it’s all in proportion to how nice or good the smoothie is – you pay for what you get.

So, the solution….

We’ll see how it goes.  I love fruit and eat a lot of it and I like it to be nice.  I think with careful, selective buying we can crack this and get it right.  Getting it right means being economical and yet getting good quality.  After all, good ripe fruit brings all the proper benefits.  Forceable grown fruit doesn’t necessarily bring all the goodness we need.

I’m probably going to invest in some more Cherry Active soon.  Expensive at £30 a bottle but it does last well and contains lots of antioxidants and other nutrients which are, quite frankly, superbly healthy.