This morning I had a little aha moment. Yesterday, as you know wasn't a great day, so besides the huge salad I had for dinner, I didn't stick to the food plan and just nibbled on fruit the whole day. This morning, my breakfast was a huge selection of fruit with a little nut cream - yum.
What I realised during these two fruit-filled days is why North Americans don't eat enough fruit. The answer is simple really - it tastes aweful! Sorry to throw that out there like that, but it really does.
Now I am not North American, I have been living in Canada and the USA for the past few years and it just dawned on me, that once I moved to the USA I stopped eating the fruits I have always loved and grown up devouring. Why, because they all taste the same, and that taste is insipid and watery and unidentifiable. Now of course I am generalising here, I have had a great apple during apple season, and I have had the odd good fruit, but nothing close to what they should taste like. I'm sure part of that reason is that we expect to be able to eat any fruit at any time of the year. I understand that.
I understand that expecting my breakfast plums and strawberries to taste ripe and luscious while we are coming out of a deep dark winter is perhaps crazy. But, it's not stopping anyone selling them to us for outrageous prices. I also understand that if I bought everything at Whole Foods, or the farmers market it might be better, but then I might be taking out a second mortgage on the house to sustain that, so we have to weigh the pros and cons of supporting local and quite frankly right now, it's just not always an option for most people!
We've just got to be able to do better than that, don't we? We have to produce natural fruit that is yummy and juicy and tasty. So what if they aren't a certain diameter and who cares if they aren't all the same perfect shape and colour, shouldn't the taste be more important than how good they look on the shelves?
So, this morning, I pulled out this beautiful big pineapple and then got out my meat cutting board that has a drain around the outside to catch juices, because it's impossible to cut fresh pineapple where I come from without it ending up all over the kitchen. I cut and cut and cut and quite frankly, I could have cut it in my car, on my lap and not got one drop of juice on the seats - there was no juice. How sad, although it actually didn't taste too bad. Nothing like the plum, that tasted like... well, like nothing. Or, the strawberries, that tasted like... well, like nothing. So sad. If I hadn't seen the colour and shape of the fruit, or the name above it in the store "PLUMS", I would not have been able to tell you what I was eating.
My question is, how can we get people to eat better and be healthy if the food they are eating is aweful? Why are we putting up with this?
Hmmm, I'll let you know when I have the answer. But, for now, I'm going to make more nut cream so my fruit can taste... well, like nuts.
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