Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/14/an-edible-second-skin-to-p.html
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I find this very Apeel’ing.
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Preventing items from spoiling faster is great, but what does this do for flavors that develop during the ripening stage?
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You can already buy apples with a delicious wax coating. In fact, wax-free apples are hard to find. And I bought a box of mikan last week, they were waxed too. They don’t wax bananas? Maybe they already have some kind of coating or peel.
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Avocados coated with Apeel will soon hit shelves in Europe
That feels… superfluous. The avocado fruit already has a thick, impermeable skin. Unless they’re going to start selling thin-skinned varieties (which seems unlikely), this seems like it would do nothing.
The thing is, there are a lot of fruits that have no real (or any) commercial presence because they’re fragile enough that it becomes too problematic/impossible to have them survive being sold in stores. It would be interesting if this could change that. It doesn’t sound like it, though…
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Just look at it!!
(really BB? I’m the first with this?)
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Just like ricin and cyanide!
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The edible part is a bit unnecessary. Who is going to bite through an avocado or banana peel?
edit: Also, the most annoying part about avocados where I live is that they are constantly rock hard when you go to buy them. Maintaining freshness doesn’t seem to be a problem.
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The reason avocados are sold under-ripe is that once ripe, they have a VERY short shelf life (also, they ship better when not yet ripe). They pick them early, then they finish ripening on your counter. Once ripe, they’ve got maybe 2 days at most before they’re trash.
With this coating, in theory, they could wait until they’re ripe, coat them, then they’ll stay ripe on the shelf (if the claims are true)
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I learnt relatively recently that once an avocado hits that 10-minute ripe window, put it in the fridge, and it’ll stop ripening and last for several days before turning to brown sludge. I buy bags of rock hard ones at a National Warehouse Chain and I rarely have to throw one out now that I’m using this one weird trick.
Hope this helps!
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I hope the fridge’s brown slime level is pretty low, too. Yeah, I was hoping it didn’t grow those fibrous bits or mold, so that might help the regular peel do the trick. (Number of saffron crocus riddled with avacado sticking out of the mulch: 0.)
“Building demolished using a ‘ripe’ avocado”
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Peaches, yes. Bananas, no.
Thank you for this! I’m going to give it a shot – I love avocados and this sounds like it will feed that love with more wonderful avocado!
Scammers will be selling it for people in no time: “This one weird beauty trick…”
I mean …
Hopefully it would lead to a reduction in plastic use? here’s hoping.
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Maybe? It doesn’t seem like the proposed usage and how plastic is currently used with fruit would overlap a lot. But it’s possible the added protection could allow for different handling that requires less plastic. Yeah, hopefully.
