Wax on produce

We are blessed to often get fruit from friends and neighbors who have citrus trees in their yards. Sometimes fruit is left in a box outside a home with a "free" sign, or a pile is left on a table in the Baja Bistro (gathering room for meals, socializing, meetings). Sometimes a friend who knows that we love fruit brings a bag by our house.

We have noticed that when the fruit has just been picked, they are often really large fruits, but over a few days, they reduce in size...

Bag of oranges brought by a friend from his yard

Day 14

 

Day 1 - blue plastic top for comparison

Day 1 versus day 14 --->

 

 

 

 

 

Note that I can't be certain that the pictures are of the exact same orange, but originally they were all about the same size.

Carl spent some years working at grocery stores in the Chicago suburbs, part of the time in the produce department (he is embarrassed to admit how roughly they treated the fruit, dumping it unceremoniously from the boxes where the fruit had been neatly packed and cushioned, and then wrapping the fruit onto foam trays in cellophane). He worked as a stock boy, but also was on a management training program so worked different departments so he would learn more about the stores and how they ran. Of course, produce in the grocery store is waxed. We thought that the waxing was to make it look better (shinier), but since we've noticed this tendency of our fresh fruit, we did some research... one article said, "To protect fresh produce from dehydration and postharvest decay and also to enhance their appearances, fruit producers may apply wax on some of these products." https://www.cfs.gov.hk/english/multimedia/multimedia_pub/multimedia_pub_fsf_120_02.html 

We enjoy shopping at a local market for our vegetables, but we have noticed that the lifespan is very short for most of the vegetables we get there ("don't buy more than you're going to use in the next day or so"). We understand that much of their produce comes from Mexico and may not get the same treatment as US grown produce. I think they also get things that are near end-of-life which is why their prices are so reasonable. I also see them dumping the produce pretty roughly into the purchase bin areas, so some of the bruising that we see after we get the items home is from handling at the store. Again, it is okay if you use it soon, but don't plan on keeping it for more than a couple of days!