Tips on Picking the Best Fruits & Vegetables

Making sure you’re getting your daily dose of fresh produce isn’t the only problem; finding the best, ripest and tastiest produce is more often than not, difficult to figure. We’ve been that person in the produce section of the supermarket—we sniff, poke and shake—and yet still end up with produce that are either underripe or already spoiled inside.

There is so much more involved in the art of choosing fruits and vegetables other than avoiding blemishes and spots. It’s a task that requires all five senses to decipher the quality of your produce. Regardless of what you’re shopping for, here we have some tips that will give you the basic skills you need to hold your own when picking out produce:

1. Outer appearance

Avoid those with dark spots that aren’t part of the produce’s natural color spectrum. Bruises and inflicted dents are also best avoided. Look for fruits and vegetables with the brightest, most inviting colors. The tastiest, vine-ripened produce should be vibrant, with its skin entirely saturated with color. If the food has a dull color or whitish sheen that means it is either not fully ripe or was deprived of sun or nutrients. Don’t be afraid of speckles and spots. That just means your vegetables and fruits were grown as naturally as possible and are ripening naturally as well. Bananas, in particular, are always more flavourful when they are slightly speckled.

2. Heavy weight

Size really doesn’t matter. Generally you want to pick a medium-sized produce that has the heaviest weight for its size compared to the rest of your options. Lightweight produce is more likely to be dry and mealy, but heavier produce will be juicy and crisp. The best way to tell is to pick up two similarly sized fruits, one with each hand. After you’ve tried a few it will be obvious that certain fruits are much heavier than the rest, and those are your best bets. This applies to both fruits and vegetables, but mostly to fruits.

3. Firm, but not hard

The best produce should be perfectly plump. This means that it should be firm to the touch—crisp and succulent—but not hard, squishy or limp. Produce that is too hard might not ripen in time, or at all. While the perfect amount of firmness will vary for each type of produce, comparing within the batch can be very helpful. A produce that’s too soft or mushy in spots should be avoided, as this is a sign that it is overly ripe and is on the highway to going bad. While this tip works as a general rule, keep in mind that it doesn’t apply to everything. Peaches, for example, are better very soft, so are certain kinds of persimmons.

4. Fragrant aroma

The most telling test of the quality of fruit is how it smells. Unripe fruits smell like nothing, or at best like the cardboard it was packed in. Ripe fruits almost always faintly (and often overwhelmingly) of how it’s supposed to taste. Smell the part of the fruit that was attached to the stem and compare a few of your options. The strongest smelling fruit will be the most ripe and ready to eat immediately. If you’re not going to eat your fruit immediately, choose a piece that still smells good, but has a less strong of a scent. Although it may be hard to discern the smell for vegetables, it’s still worth trying. Green leafy vegetables and herbs are particularly fragrant. Note that this tip may not apply to some vegetables, for example, eggplant.

5. Shop with the seasons

Picking seasonal veggies and fruits mean that you’re eating the way nature intended. In-season produce is fresher and tastes better, sweeter and perfectly ripe. When fruits and vegetables are picked for consumption that have been naturally ripened on the vine or the tree and harvested at the right time, it will have much more flavor and nutrition. It’s also a lot cheaper.

6. Buy local

As a general rule, it’s always better to buy local. Fruits and vegetables begin to lose nutrients as soon as they are picked. Buying local produce cuts down travel time from farm to table and therefore are fresher. Buying local is also better for the environment. Some foods are shipped literally thousands of miles, which is a big carbon footprint that could be avoided by purchasing local, seasonal foods.

7. Buy organic when possible

EWG's analysis of the most recent tests by the Department of Agriculture reported that nearly 70 percent of conventional produce were contaminated pesticide residues! If you're concerned about food safety, you probably already look for organic produce at the supermarket. Although organic isn’t always easy to buy on a budget, you can still dramatically reduce your family’s exposure to chemical pesticides by choosing the least pesticide-contaminated produce, and switching those that are heavily-sprayed with organic produce. For reference, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) releases their annual guide to the produce containing the most pesticides, aka the Dirty Dozen List. The Dirty List includes apples, peaches, nectarines, strawberries, grapes, celery, spinach, sweet bell peppers, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, potatoes, hot peppers, kale and collards; while the “cleaner” produce includes avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, cabbage, sweet peas, onions, asparagus, mangos, papayas, kiwi, eggplant, grapefruit, cantaloupe, cauliflower and sweet potatoes.

8. Ripen fruits at home

Although most fruits will not continue to ripen after it’s been picked (citrus fruits, grapes, pineapples, and most berries), some will. Fruits that continue to ripen at home include bananas, avocados (only ripen after picking), peaches, mangos, pears, melons, peaches and apples. To ripen your fruits, you can leave them at the table counter out of direct sunlight, but for best results, use a brown paper bag. Placing fruit in a paper bag helps to concentrate the levels of ethylene gas which is what helps induce the ripening of the fruits. To take this a step further, place a banana inside the bag with your underripe fruit. It’s particularly powerful at producing ethylene, and will ripen your fruit in no time.