Choosing fresh fruit often feels like a guessing game, but you can stack the odds in your favour. Just compare the firmness of the fruit to how different parts of your face feel to your touch.
Picture: wiennat
As the always-resourceful blog One Good Thing by Jillee suggests, you can use the “face test” to check the ripeness of many types of fruits, including avocados, peaches and kiwis. Squeeze the fruit gently. If it feels about the same firmness as when you push lightly on the tip of your nose, the fruit is just right. If it feels harder, like your forehead, it’s not ripe enough yet. And if it feels soft like your cheek, it’s probably too ripe.
Hit up the post at One Good Thing by Jillee for lots more advice on choosing ripe fruit.
Taking the Guesswork out of Choosing Fresh Fruit! [One Good Thing by Jillee]
Comments
5 responses to “Choose Ripe Fruit With The Face Test”
I can’t wait to see people in the supermarket touching their faces and noses while handling fresh fruit.
Thanks for the report, I’ll double wash my fruit now.
No, no, no.
Don’t go squeezing fruit to determine ripeness, as you’ll just bruise the fruit.
Picking the fruit and lightly sniffing it from a few centimeters away will tell you if it is ripe or not. With the prevalence of forced ripening by CO2, this is a surefire method of knowing if the fruit is ready.
Facerolling your way through the Produce section is not going to keep you on the right side of either the supermarket or their customers.
Dont think this would work with watermelons and soft granny smiths?
I work with fruits and vegetables.
If I ever see anyone squeezing a fruit (especially avocadoes) they are politely asked not to and then watched like a hawk until they leave. One time a man came in and flicked a whole lot of apples, leaving them bruised! It’s really inconsiderate towards other customers. If you squeeze it (or flick it?) then decide you don’t want it you’ve just ruined it for the next person. In my store, we reduce damaged stock to a cheaper price to clear it, however in some other stores they simply throw it away which is really wasteful. Also, sometimes the bruise doesn’t show up immediately, or it’s hard to tell through thick skinned items, so the person takes it home thinking it’s fine, and they get rubbish.
Why roll your face around in the fruit? If you want to share your germs, just grab the nearest person and lick their entire face. It will be just as crazy and germ-spreading.
And besides, who even needs to use this method to determine ripeness? It is actually really obvious in most fruits and vegetables. Yellow bananas, red tomato, yellowing and soft pears, soft oranges, yellow pineapples, soft peaches, soft kiwi fruit, check the top of the avocado to make sure it’s not black. The list goes on. You honestly only have to gently hold it in your hand, then you will know. There is a very big difference between the feeling of a rock solid pear, and a ready to eat one, and you can find this all out by not squeezing or motorboating it.
Also it looks like there is a lizard on top of the granny smiths. Good day.
I don’t think the author of this or the original article were suggesting you push peaches against your nose/cheek/forehead to check ripeness – only to compare the feeling. With your fingers. I know what my forehead feels like without pushing an avocado onto it, and I know when an avocado is as hard as my skull.
Everyone has taken this way too literally.
A tip for the courteous sniffers:
Grab fruit and veg from the highest 1/3 and you are much less likely to buy something already squeezed. Never take from the bottom 1/3 as that is exactly where squeezed produce is placed back. This applies to markets and supermarkets.
Colour, scent and season are the biggest indicators ripeness and quality.