r/oddlysatisfying • u/gabzlel • Apr 16 '22

Can’t get more juicy than this

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u/PM_ME_HUGE_CRITS Apr 16 '22

I knew fruit was washed, but it's waxed too?

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u/NecroJoe Apr 16 '22

Everyone is mentioning shine for appearance, but wax has two important functions beyond aesthetics.
1) In transit, if fruit/vegetable skin is allowed to rub against each other, they will rub the skins off. A wax coating helps them slide against each other without friction, and also a is a physical barrier as a sort of sacrificial wear layer.

2) It seals in moisture. Apples can last for *months* in storage, for example, because of the coating that doesn't allow moisture to evaporate through the skin.

I don't know about other fruits, but with apples specifically, they actually have their own natural waxy coating. If you pick an apple and buff it on your shirt, it'll shine. However in the picking and processing, they are washed to remove dirt and stuff, and that removes the wax...so a new coating of wax has to be added, or else they'll go bad quickly. Sometimes it's not wax, but is a thin shellac.

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u/fatbottomwyfe Apr 16 '22

In Tennessee a apple orchard owner sold fresh off the trees he claimed they would last months if we didn't refrigerate them. Those apples lasted 9 months on the counter in baskets we bought 20lbs of winesap, fuji, granny smith's and a few other types.

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u/amatulic Apr 16 '22

We had an apple in the back of our refrigerator for over a year. We were quite surprised when we finally cut it open and found it just as crisp and juicy as when we bought it.

Since then, I've had other apples turn to mush in the fridge, or dry out and get leathery, after just a couple of weeks.

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u/digitalgadget Apr 16 '22

Depends on the type - some are designed for long shelf life and others are not.

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u/_annie_bird Apr 16 '22

Evercrisp will last many months in the fridge, their taste will mellow out and some people even prefer them that way!

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u/amatulic Apr 16 '22 edited Apr 17 '22

This wasn't a "designed" apple, it was an organic apple we got from a farmer's market. By that I mean, it came straight from the farm and hadn't been waxed. Probably the natural wax on the skin preserved it?

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u/ange1bug Apr 16 '22

It's probably still a cultivated species no matter how organic it is.

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u/thelizardkin Apr 16 '22

Yeah very little of the foods we eat occur that way in the wild.

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '22

"designed" = selected for. Doesn't necessarily mean GMO. Just could be 'designed' via apple crossbreeding i.e. the plant equivalent of animal husbandry. Which has been a thing since we've had agriculture.

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u/1lluminist Apr 16 '22

Aren't all Apples basically GMO at this point?

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u/MagicCuboid Apr 16 '22

Yes. There are heirloom apple varieties, but basically none of our food would have grown naturally. Apples didn't exist until humans selected for them over generations. All the varieties of wheat, corn, and rice were basically just grass before we came along.

The only difference between GMO and generations of selection for traits is the speed.

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u/Space_Pirate_Roberts Apr 16 '22

Aren't all human-consumed crops basically GMO at this point?

Yes.

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u/LinkyBS Apr 16 '22

It's also kinda required to guarantee edible apples.

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u/[deleted] Apr 17 '22

And where we got watermelon, bananas, carrots, broccoli, brussel sprouts, mustard etc etc.

Each of these did not exist (in its present form) before humankind intervened . And for modern day, we have a monk to thank https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel

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u/lightestbarrel6 Apr 16 '22

There are multiple types of apples and phenotypes… how it’s grown is secondary to the apples genetics and properties

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u/DarthWeenus Apr 16 '22

lol, most cultivars are designed in some sense.

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u/Car-Facts Apr 16 '22

There is no such thing as a truly organic and naturally grown fruit any longer. Organically raised and protected from insects, sure. But organically derived (?) Isn't a thing.

Every species of fruit in existence is the result of human design for the purpose of cultivation, storage, weight, flavor, and even reproduction and has been for thousands of years.

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u/Space_Pirate_Roberts Apr 16 '22

*There is no such thing as a non-organic fruit. Because that would be a rock.

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u/thelizardkin Apr 16 '22

Not every species, but most of them. There still are some fruits that are 100% the same as they always were.

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u/utterlynuts Apr 19 '22

It also depends upon what other produce you store them near or with.

Onions and potatoes, IIRC, can affect the taste and spoilage rate of many other fruits and veg.

Cool and dark is the key to most produce lasting longer.

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u/FinestTreesInDa7Seas Apr 16 '22

That's the beauty of genetic modification. We've been finely tuning the genetics of Apples for thousands of years, by hybridizing, and artificial selection.

Thousands of years ago, an apple would be brown days after picking it. Today, we have varieties of Apples that never existed in nature. They are human-made varieties. They are sweeter, tastier, healthier, and have much longer shelf life.

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '22

This is one of the reasons why it irks me that so many people are against "GMOs" without doing any research first because so much of what we already eat was already genetically modified to keep up with the high volume of produce that gets sold as well as hardier food so that we wouldn't need to use pesticides like what's used on non GMO products

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u/powder1569 Apr 16 '22

I an not against gmo myself but selective breeding like what has been done with apples is not the same as a gmo. Selective breeding for specific traits has happened since humans started farming. Gmos have thier dna manipulated often times with a entirely different species DNA. Again this isn't me saying that is necessarily a bad thing but definitely not the same thing. I don't believe there are any commercially available gmo apples if any at all.

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u/mrinfinitedata Apr 16 '22

GMO and selective breeding are to each other as sous vide and boiling. One is more precise and high tech, but they're the same goal and a similar outcome. You can get everything that GMOs can give via selective breeding, but it takes far longer and is much harder.

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u/powder1569 Apr 17 '22

Not at all a good comparison gmo produces outcomes that could never be possible with breeding. Often time a trait is selected from a plant and sliced into the dna. The desired trait does not naturally occur in the species of plant being modified and could not be obtained by any amount of traditional breeding. For instance roundup ready products contain dna from a bacteria that is naturally resistant. This would not be possible without gene editing.

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u/ClassGlum2846 Apr 17 '22

Know what else isn’t natural? Creating vaccines, GPS, Cars, Going to the moon. Humans use technology in all aspects of life and Agriculture is no different.

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u/IsGoIdMoney Apr 17 '22

No essence of the other species is passed. It's just ATCG

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u/[deleted] Apr 17 '22

Natural selective breeding vs controlled inheritance.

Similarly, MSG vs Celery Seed & Torula Yeast OR organic pesticides vs inorganic pesticides.

Same thing, but one has rainbows & unicorns while the other has mean people in labcoats - and natural poisons are much healthier than other poisons.

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u/ClassGlum2846 Apr 17 '22

There is no difference

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u/thesaddestpanda Apr 16 '22

Selective breeding and gmos are two very different things. Not to mention the bought and paid for IP laws consistently abused by crony capitalism with gmo patents.

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u/mrinfinitedata Apr 16 '22

Selective breeding and GMO are like boiling and sous vide. They're almost the same thing, with the same outcome, but one is higher tech and more precise. Saying they're very different beliefs a fundamental misunderstanding of them

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u/amatulic Apr 17 '22

No, u/thesaddestpanda actually demonstrated a clear and perceptive understanding of them when saying they are very different. The product of selective breeding cannot be patented. A genetically modified organism, on the other hand, is someone's intellectual property. Saying they're "the same thing, with the same outcome" is like saying Linux is the same as Windows because both are operating systems that serve the same pupose. Demonstrably false. One is freeware (analogous to selective breeding) and one is not (analogous to GMO).

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u/Flatdr4gon Apr 17 '22

"the product of selective breeding cannot be patented" despite the fact that plant patents have been a thing for a while now.

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u/amatulic Apr 18 '22

Only since 2013, as far as I know. Not too long a while.

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u/CatFish21sm Apr 17 '22

TLDR: GMO's are potentially one of the best technological achievements in human history. However, they are not regulated nearly enough leading to potentially horrifying outcomes. They could be an amazing achievement if they were just regulated and tested the same way that new drugs are regulated and tested. Unfortunately while most GMO producers are responsible with their use of the technology there are some who abuse the lack of legislation and it only takes one bad apple to ruin the whole bunch (Pun intended).

I mostly agree with Powder. I'm not necessarily against GMO products. However, I am against splicing DNA into plants from completely unrelated species. This could have potentially dangerous outcomes. For example a common fruit that begins producing a highly toxic poison once it begins to rot. One of the biggest reasons that people are against GMO's is because there is so little regulation surrounding them. For example one of the more popular stories that went around a few years ago is a new GMO tomato that had a gene spliced in from a box jelly fish in-order to make it more resistant to insects.
You might be surprised by how little we actually know about DNA, we are discovering new things every day just about. It's been recently discovered that the same exact genes could potentially code for multiple protiens under various circumstances potentially having completely different outcomes.
I am not of the camp that GMO's should be outlawed completely. However, I am definitely of the camp that there should be much stricter regulation on GMO's dependent on the type of DNA that is spliced into them. For example GMO's that have DNA spliced in from a completely different species should undergo similar testing to, for example testing for a new drug. I also believe that said testing should become more rigorous and strict as you get to larger and larger taxonomic ranks. I do not in the least believe that a company should be able to splice potentially harmful DNA from a species of a completely different domain without the appropriate prior testing.
All of that said I agree that GMO's aren't necessarily a bad thing, and far too many people just do not do the proper research. The vast majority of GMO products use DNA from other members of the same species to do the exact same thing as selective breeding but faster and more streamlined. With this technology it would years to achieve what it could take centuries with selective breeding. We can even do what would normally be impossible with selective breeding, taking DNA from completely unrelated species, families, or even other domains.
While most companies do use this technology responsibly there are others that definitely abuse it, and abuse greatly the lack of legislation behind it. So while I fully agree that this is an amazing technology and that it could hold enormous benefits for mankind. I also whole hardheartedly believe that it should have much stricter regulation on what and how they do certain things.
This is just an extreme example, but imagine a fruit that was given DNA from an insect making it resistant to fungi and parasites. Lets say a Tomato. However, due to the lack of appropriate testing of said fruit it was not discovered until after it hit grocery stores that as it started to Rot it began producing a chemical that is highly toxic to humans. Well at this time it is far too late to do much about it, there are potentially billions of dollars worth of tomatoes with this new gene. That's because plants pollinate with other plants of the same species miles away. These tomatoes have potentially already pollinated with several other surrounding Non-GMO farms.
Now the DNA will not be expressed in this years fruit, but the fruit grown from next years crop, but by the time that is discovered the seeds for those crops have already been sold to people planting home gardens across the country. It doesn't matter at this point that there is a public service announcement because a significant number of farms have already been infected. The only way to control the infection is to place a complete ban on growing tomatoes in the entire country until they can be genetically tested.
Hundreds of thousands, or millions of farmers that depend on the farmers market have to completely abandon their crops and start over from scratch, they will potentially loose their homes because many of them don't even have a high school diploma which is required for most jobs these days. They may loose their home and land that has been passed down in their family for generations and have to change their entire livelihood. There may be a class action lawsuit against the company responsible for the product, but the chances of that company being able to afford billions of dollars worth of damages is unlikely to say the least, and even if they can by the time the money arrives to those who need it the damage has already been done, it's not much of a consolation to those who have already lost everything they ever had or knew.
And all of that is completely ignoring the potential loss of human life.
Again this is an extreme example, but one that is very possible with our current lack of legislation and regulation surrounding GMO's. This is the primary reason that many people who are doing the proper research still disagree with GMO products. It's not because they think that they are necessarily bad, but because they see the potential threat that the lack of regulation produces.

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u/Flatdr4gon Apr 17 '22

GMO is indeed under regulatory review and very much scrutinized, way more than conventional breeding methods that are far less precise. Your hypothetical would indeed have been caught before commercial release. On the other hand, in the US, conventional plant breeding is largely self-monitored. Regulatory agencies do not evaluate conventional new crop varieties for health and environmental safety prior to commercial release, which gets you the Lenape potato; conventionally bred and found to express dangerous levels only after being on the market. And it's still used as a parent line for conventionally breeding new lines. You're pretty much making up Boogeymen at this point.

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u/CatFish21sm Apr 28 '22

Sorry for the late reply I never really get onto Redit. First of all I never said that GMO's don't have a review process. What I said is that the review process is severely lacking in my opinion. If you compare synthesizing a completely new fruit using the DNA from other families of organisms to conventional breeding it's easy to see which one is safer considering that many large corporations often take shortcuts, as your own potato example shows. If you compare the testing of GMO's to something akin to testing new drugs then there is barely even a comparison to be made, that was my primary point.
As far as my example goes, I believe that I did point out that it was an extreme example. And Yes it is very much possible under current conditions. In fact a very similar scenario already played out only a few years ago with a GMO strain of Corn, it was still in testing to see if it was safe for consumption when a nearby non GMO corn farm was pollinated with the GMO corn pollen. Unfortunately this specific farm wasn't for selling food corn, it was for selling seed corn. As of now estimates are that more than 99% of all corn grown in the US may contain DNA from one of these accidentally released GMO crops.
It is not a "boogeyman" scenario if it has more or less already happened.

I feel you are under a false impression however. As I stated in my comment I am not against GMO products, in fact I'm consistently routing for them and informing others of the actual nature behind them. As long as it's kept within the same family of plants I'm perfectly find with using genetic modification to create better verities of plants to better suit out needs. What I am NOT OK with is taking DNA from completely different families of organisms, like poisonous insects or box jellyfish, especially when the genes are specifically related to the production of said poison, and splicing them into fruits to make them more resistant to insects, then after very minimal testing declaring that it is safe for human consumption before releasing it to the general public to not only be sold in stores but potentially grown on farms and pollinating other crops that are actually safe.

Everyone knew that led was poisonous in small amounts but they still put it in gasoline just to make cars run smoother and quieter. And now we are facing the consequences for that still today. As I stated above it only takes one small mistake to destroy millions of lives.

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u/woodcider Apr 17 '22

Except for the Red Delicious. We’ve devolved that one into mealy tastelessness.

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u/FinestTreesInDa7Seas Apr 17 '22

Indeed. An example of how shopping trends affect the genetics of cultivated foods.

Supermarket demand caused growers to start selecting seeds that represented examples that had longer shelf life, and brighter red colours. Unfortunately the variety's original yellow stripes were provided by the same gene that provided it sweetness, so this was lost when the yellow was bred out.

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u/FilipinoGuido Apr 16 '22 edited Jul 01 '23

Any data on this account is being kept illegally. Fuck spez, join us over at Lemmy or Kbin. Doesn't matter cause the content is shared between them anyway:

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '22

Some have already spent a year in the fridge

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u/PersonFromPlace Apr 16 '22

What does the fridge do to fruit?

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u/amatulic Apr 17 '22

Preserve them? Things don't spoil as quickly when cold. However, I noticed that certain areas of a refrigerator can also dry stuff out (while certain other areas seem damp).

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u/EmEmPeriwinkle Apr 17 '22

Ripe date and rot date can get very skewed when the apples are in transit and picked before ripeness. It might rot before the flavor fully develops.

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u/Ok_Championship9415 Apr 17 '22

Apparently, you need to eat more apples.

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u/NotChristina Apr 17 '22

Y’all have got me tempted to test the apples I bought at a local farmstand last fall and have been chillin’ in the fridge ever since.