Info about Fruit Baskets
Fruit & Vegetables
The fruit and vegetable trades are becoming more sophisticated. Much grading is done these days, although this may not be apparent to you at the point of sale. Ask for your fruit and vegetables by grade. The grades are 1 to 3 according to quality.
The weight must be known to you before you buy. Countable produce may be sold by count, and visible packs, if containing no more than eight objects, need not be marked with numbers.
• How to Choose Fresh Vegetables and Fruit:
• Take a pea out of a pea pod. It should disintegrate under gentle pressure, or a bean in the hand.
If it snaps easily when bent it is fresh, if it only bends the chances are it is stale.
• Yellower outer leaves on cabbage. Savoy’s or Brussels sprouts indicates that they are stale.
• If the outside leaves of vegetables are missing, it could mean that they have been removed because the vegetables are stale.
• Any shrinking and softening of root vegetables means they could be stale, or have been stored badly. They should be smooth-skinned and firm to the touch.
• Choose fruit that feels heavy for size, is firm and not flabby.
• You can usually judge the quality of strawberries and other soft fruit by sight.They should not be pappy or moldy.
• Do not buy apples with bruised or shrunken skins.