Josh Barro registers a shift in Americans’ eating habits:
According to statistics published by the United States Department of Agriculture, per capita consumption of fresh raspberries grew 475 percent from 2000 to 2012, the most recent year for which data are available. Blueberry consumption is up 411 percent, and strawberries are up 60 percent.
He notes, to his surprise, that “the main factors changing what fruits we eat are on the supply side”:
If people are eating more of some kind of fruit, it’s probably because farmers have figured out how to deliver more of it, at higher quality, throughout the year. Of course, there is the “superfood” factor:
Both raspberries and blueberries have been praised for their nutrient value. But Chris Romano, who leads global produce procurement for Whole Foods, attributes the boom in berries largely to taste and availability. “Techniques in growing raspberries, blueberries and blackberries have gotten much better over the last 15 years,” he said. Growers are planting better breeds of berry, with higher sugar content; they’re using pruning and growing techniques that extend the season, including growing berries inside greenhouse-like structures called tunnels that retain heat; and most important, they’re growing berries in places they didn’t used to, where production is possible at different times of year.
Update from a reader:
I don’t know why Josh Barro is so surprised by this. I lived in Ithaca, NY, when the farmers market got started. There were already several farms in the area where people could pick strawberries and other crops. After a few years in the 1970s, we went to one farm that had more than a one-week strawberry season. When we asked, it turned out that they were starting some berry plants earlier using protection from the weather and Canadian varieties more accustomed to cooler weather. I think they experimented with Southern varieties to extend the season later.
Over the years, vendors selling in the farmers market pushed to extend their seasons or get two seasons out of cool weather crops, including some greens, broccoli, and peas. There were probably more crops that I can’t remember or that came after we got transferred out of town. I miss the Ithaca farmers market a great deal. I was delighted to buy fresh produce that was locally grown “out of season”.
Where I live now in Pennsylvania, I see the season for fresh corn being extended through early and later planting and some careful management. But it’s also getting harder to get fresh corn right out of the field at some farm markets, which have added refrigeration facilities to hold the corn. The supersweet varieties do have pretty good quality when they’re refrigerated right away, but the ones grown locally are not candy-sweet. Frozen corn in bulk packages at grocery stores is now so sugary I can’t stand the brands I’ve tried. I’ve gone back to home freezing and otherwise avoiding corn.
The downside of all this sugaring up is that with corn and also with winter squash – at least for me – is that I don’t like eating them as much. I don’t want to eat corn that is as sweet as a banana. I want to be able to add a little brown sugar to the squash to perk up the flavor but add that molasses overtone – and acorn squash has gotten so much sweeter adding brown sugar makes it cloying. In addition, some of the squashes I used to buy seem to be unavailable. In Ithaca when I was first married, I’d bake a mixture of acorn and buttercup squash because the buttercup was drier and the combination could be run through a food mill and frozen, and the result reheated nicely and wasn’t watery. Buttercup squash, confusingly, looked more like acorns with the big cap and protruding cup-shaped base. I haven’t seen it in a farmers market or store in years.
One thing I’d like to know about the increased sale of raspberries is what the rate of waste is. I am very cautious about buying berries and inspect carefully. A fair number of packages of blueberries show a bit of white mold or squashed berries on the bottom, and blueberries are fairly sturdy compared to raspberries. Raspberries spoil really easily, so I wonder if more are discarded at the store and if more are discarded at home because of mold or other deterioration. I do appreciate getting the berries in clear plastic containers, because I can visually inspect them, but berry sales, unlike banana sales, depend on a lot of plastic – which also gives me pause.
(Photo by Flickr user swong95765)
The Dish 