Is Local Sweeter?
Our second blog post in the "It's" series will handle the second claim on our front page: "Its Sweet". Disclaimer: due to length, this post will be a 2-part doozy!
Regardless of your personal philosophies about the food system, it's hard to argue against the claim that demand for locally-sourced foods is increasing in the US. A 2016 survey conducted by the National Restaurant Association observed that consumers were more likely to go to restaurants if they sourced local foods in their menu, and restaurants responded to this demand by increasing their purchases of local foods. At the grocer level, according to my initial conversations with buyers at co-ops, a growing portion of consumers will only buy non-local produce if a local option isn't available, and are usually willing to pay more for that preference.The question then becomes why? Why are people prioritizing local foods? Do local foods taste better?
I'm certainly not going to answer that question categorically. Even with my...not inconsiderable experience and training in the science of food systems, I don't feel comfortable trying to tackle that beast in a simple blog post (nor should I, nor should you!). BUT! What I can do is show why I think my specific fruit (strawberries) will taste better when you pick them up at say, Seward Co-op, compared to the also-organic strawberries right next to them that were grown in California, Florida or Mexico.
March 20 I went to the grocery store and purchased 1 lb. of organic strawberries ($6). I won't disclose the company, but the fruit came from California. As you can see, some of them look nice, but the shoulders and tips of many of them are white, implying they weren't picked at peak ripeness, and the calyxs are wilted, implying they were probably picked several days ago. Cutting open the fruit we see this:
While it's normal to see some white flesh even in a fresh, ripe strawberry, here we're seeing red color only on the outside of the fruit. Strawberries ripen from the outside in, and unlike many fruits they do not ripen after picked. So, these pictures further my suspicion that the fruit was not picked fully ripe.
Based on my observations, the 2 biggest factors that lead to bland strawberries are ripeness at picking (or lack thereof), and time since harvest. Strawberries don't ripen after harvest, but they still 'breathe' (respire), and as time goes on they decrease in overall quality (including sweetness), even when stored in a refrigerated setting. So! I decided to measure the sweetness of these California berries myself, both at time of purchase, and as time goes on in refrigerated conditions. Then, I will compare the measurements with the sweetness of my own fruit! Similar experiments have been done (and with more scientific rigor) many times before, but I thought it would be fun to do a small project myself for the purpose of this blog post, because I'm quite the nerd.
This cute little device is called a refractometer, and is what I'll be using to measure sweetness. Refractometers are an easy, brutish way of measuring sugars; there are more precise methods and instruments, but I'm not looking to get published here so this is what I'll be using. Once you calibrate them out, you squeeze a little fruit juice into the basin. The refractometer shoots light into the liquid from the bottom and measures how much light 'transmits' through the solution vs. how much reflects and refracts around inside it. Since 'soluble solids' cause the most reflection/refraction, and most soluble solids in fruit juices are sugars, this is a decently roundabout way of measuring sweetness. Cool!
Ok, part 1 of "It's Sweet" is finished! Part 2 will feature the results of my experiment, measuring sweetness of storebought organic strawbs from California at multiple time points and comparing it to TCBC fruit. Stay tuned!
Click here for epic conclusion!