Are fruits still alive after you pick them?
Fruits and Vegetables Are Alive — Even After Being Harvested Store-bought fruits and vegetables still have living circadian clocks that should impact how, and when, we store and eat them, according to a new study.
Climacteric Fruits Which Ripen after Picking. Apple. Apricot. Avocado (avocados do not ripen on the tree!) Banana. Cantaloupe*. Chile Pepper. Fig.
After apples are picked, they are still alive – they continue to carry out the chemical processes of a living plant, more or less, as they take in oxygen, create energy, and get closer and closer to ripeness.
“Vegetables and fruits, even after harvest, can respond to light signals and consequently change their biology in ways that may affect health value and insect resistance,” said study author Janet Braam, PhD, of Rice University, in a press release. …
“Once bananas begin to mature, they quickly become yellow and soft, and then they rot. Li explained that bananas, like other fresh fruit and vegetables, are alive and actually “breathing,” or respirating.
Pineapple (Ananas comosus) is a perennial plant that flowers once and produces a single pineapple. So yes, the pineapple does die after fruiting, sort of. The mother plant slowly dies once fruiting is completed, but any large suckers or ratoons will continue to grow and eventually produce new fruit.
In addition, fruit doesn’t feel pain and you can eat plenty of that if eating plants is problem for you. Even though plants probable don’t feel pain and most defiantly don’t suffer from pain signals.
Li explained that bananas, like other fresh fruit and vegetables, are alive and actually “breathing,” or respirating. Like other fresh fruit and vegetables, bananas stay alive after picking. Like people, bananas breathe, or respire, taking in oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide ― but through their skin.
Once students establish that strawberries are a living things (strawberry plants are living) and need food, water, air, sunlight and space to grow, hold up the strawberry plant and discuss the parts of the plant. Show them the roots.
What do we mean by saying an orange is alive? We mean that many of the metabolic processes of life inside the orange’s cells are continuing, and that the orange is still breaking down available nutrients (undergoing respiration) to release energy that sustains its life. The seeds inside the fruit are also alive.
“Vegetables and fruits don’t die the moment they are harvested,” said lead researcher Dr. Janet Braam, Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Even after they’ve been harvested and cut from one another, their cells remain active and alive.
