Why do the USA oranges taste so foul ?

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Mark

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#37842 20-Jul-2009 09:01

It can't just be my duff taste buds can it ?

Whenever we get oranges from the supermarket, most the time they are from the US and they seem to have no flavour at all ... any idea why we get this stuff presented to us ?

I know it;s an odd topic, but I just had a craving for a nice orange and they don;t seem to exist lately. Just shelves of things that look like orange but are just grissley packages of water with no flavour.

Mark

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#237069 20-Jul-2009 09:02

Why are you bothering with USA oranges?

Buy NZ oranges - they are always far far far better during the peak of the season (right now) than anything else and also significantly cheaper.

Kraven

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#237088 20-Jul-2009 09:43

Most imported fruit is picked unripe and then artificially ripened. Because of this the true flavours never get to develop.

As sbiddle said, buy NZ fruit.

jamesvini

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#237090 20-Jul-2009 09:52

You could always have an apple they are much nicer.

pebbles

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#237092 20-Jul-2009 09:58

Also American growers will grow for size and in exchange trade off things like flavor.

Se7ensyns

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#237093 20-Jul-2009 10:02

I agree a brought some the other day and it was a grissley watery mess. I look for NZ oranges but couldnt find any. Usualy sotry is that all the good NZ fruit is exported and we import or get left with the crap stuff.

As for apples I have yet to find a nice apple for quite some time. They either go off really quickly or taste like flour, no crisp crunch. The only decent thing out there at the moment is banana's

rscole86

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#237094 20-Jul-2009 10:02

As Kraven pointed out, they always pick the fruit when it is not ripe, and then pump them full of gas to keep them from ripening until they get here. At which point, more gas is pumped in to make them ripen.

magu

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#237111 20-Jul-2009 10:26

There was this funny story in Brazil that went like this (no idea if it is true or not):

The biggest orange farm/company in Brazil decided to export oranges to the US. Their oranges were known to be very sweet and juicy, so the company thought they had a good product for the american public. So they sent a big ship full of oranges to the US, hoping to cash in with their premium quality oranges.

But they failed miserably. The americans didn't like the oranges at all, saying they 'tasted funny'. The shipment was almost entirely lost because no one bought the oranges.

So the company thought about it long and hard and decided to try again, this time with even nicer oranges, thinking it was an issue with the crop. Brand new shipment, fresh full of orange goodness. But it failed, again. Americans blamed it on the 'funny taste', again.

So, almost at the end of the season (for their kind of orange, at least), they were out of premium oranges and decided, as a last measure resort, to send normal (for local consumpton) oranges. Only this time with a different cargo company.

Incredibly, they sold out within days. No one at the company could believe it.

And then came the news that the cargo company had an issue with the ship's cooling systems, which malfunctioned all along the trip.

Which trip, you might ask? THE LAST ONE, believe it or not. The americans hated the 'funny tasting' sweet premium oranges, and instead loved the sour-tasting almost-off oranges that were in the ship with the malfunctioning cooling system. Go figure.

Company is called Cutrale.

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freitasm

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#237115 20-Jul-2009 10:37

magu: There was this funny story in Brazil that went like this (no idea if it is true or not):

I've never heard this story, but have you ever tried any of the so called "Fresh Orange Juice" you can buy in supermarkets in the U.S.? These taste like anything but oranges...

magu

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#237121 20-Jul-2009 10:49

freitasm:
magu: There was this funny story in Brazil that went like this (no idea if it is true or not):

I've never heard this story, but have you ever tried any of the so called "Fresh Orange Juice" you can buy in supermarkets in the U.S.? These taste like anything but oranges...

Yeah, tried a few while living there. Gives me the shivers just to think of them.

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sbiddle

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#237126 20-Jul-2009 11:14

Se7ensyns:
As for apples I have yet to find a nice apple for quite some time. They either go off really quickly or taste like flour, no crisp crunch. The only decent thing out there at the moment is banana's

If you want good Apples it's important that you buy them from a store that refrigerates the fruit and also to store them in your fridge. Apples go off if they are stored at room temperature, particularly fruit this time of year which has come out of Smart Fresh and/or CA storage. Stick with Yummy branded stuff and it's hard to go wrong.

If you're getting dud apples you're obviously buying them from the wrong place. NZ has fantastic apples and anybody who tells you we export the best stuff is talking rubbish.

As for the oranges were they USA Navels or Valencia's?

Balchy

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#237131 20-Jul-2009 11:43

jamesvini: You could always have an apple they are much nicer.

fanboy.

For billions of years since the outset of time, every single one of your ancestors survived, every single person on your Mum and Dads side, successfully looked after and passed onto you life. What are the chances of that like?

magu

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#237133 20-Jul-2009 11:48

LOL!

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Asmodeus

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#237136 20-Jul-2009 11:59

Some fruit and veges can sit around in fridges for months on end as well!

I dont get any of my fresh food from the supermarket anymore. Its overpriced and the quality is not what theyd have you believe or what you pay for.

Go to a fruit & vege store, theyre everywhere, cheaper and better than the supermarket in almost all cases. They also dont wildly vary the price of food all the time so they can afford to sell other stuff cheaply, etc

Same goes for butchers & meat. In general, far superior