Now that we eat healthy all the damn time, a weekly trip to the grocery store is woefully inadequate. Despite a major shopping trip on Sunday, we often need to return at least once or twice a week for additional fresh produce. I went to the store yesterday to pick up more fruit and vegetables.
I only needed a few things: bananas, blueberries, a tub of lettuce, Oil of Olay (for my beautiful complexion), and deodorant (because I work out every damn day and don’t want to stink). In fact, my list was so short I didn’t even bother writing it down. Since I didn’t have a list, I really didn’t need my glasses so I left them in the car.
When I got to the store I picked up the last three items but forgot the bananas. Oops. Publix was out of blueberries, so I browsed the produce section for something to put in my morning cup of Greek yogurt. I picked up a package of raspberries. Though I like them, I don’t buy them often because they go bad so fast. I inspected them carefully for signs of that white cottony moldy stuff they seem to pick up overnight, and seeing none, added them to my basket.
A package of giant blackberries passed a similar inspection. Each berry is roughly the size of a small plum. Delicious, but they didn’t have blackberries like these when I was a kid. Bioengineering is amazing.
The seedless red grapes my partner picked up from the store on Sunday are also over-sized. Unlike the yummy blackberries, the ginormous grapes are a bit on the bland side. I’m pretty sure seedless grapes didn’t exist when I was growing up. Ditto seedless watermelons. So much for scaring small children with tales about watermelons sprouting and growing to maturity in their stomachs.
As I was leaving the produce section, an attractive package of fruit caught my eye. Even though they were a dollar and a quarter each and came in a four-pack (for the math-impaired, that’s five dollars total), I had to buy some grapples. In case you haven’t seen them, grapples are grape-flavored apples. I tried one as soon as I got home and was astonished by the taste. Bioengineering is truly amazing.
When my partner got home, like me, he was intrigued by the grapples. Unlike me, he doesn’t need glasses to read the label and discovered that they are merely injected with grape juice. Seriously? I checked the fine print and couldn’t believe my eyes. I felt like I’d been ripped-off, taken advantage of, bamboozled.
Today or tomorrow I need to pick up some bananas. When I go, I’ll definitely buy enormous blackberries and seedless grapes again. But after these are gone, don’t look for more grapples here in…
My Glass House
2 responses to “Prodigious Produce”
Grapples? Weird. And, I think it’s even weirder that they weren’t bioengineered but just injected with grape juice.
I have noticed the franken-fruit in the stores and while the berries are getting bigger, they are not getting tastier. I could insert a “back in my day” comment here, but I don’t want to sound old, so I’ll refrain.
You’d have to be old to sound old 🙂 Having discovered the truth about grapples,we’ve lost all interest in eating them. As a bioengineered product, they were interesting. As injected fruit, they’re just blech.