We are in the harvest flush here in Australia and for the first time I have abundant plums, apricots,
apples, strawberries and pears as well as tomatoes from my own garden and those of my
neighbours.  I have been eating lots of fresh fruit every day and have bought none from the shops
for about six weeks.  I used to shop daily (to ensure freshness).

For the plums and apricots especially, I have come to an awareness that what I have been buying
in the shops has been distinctly un-paleo.  Soft fruit, when picked ripe and eaten when still warm
from the sun - which is how our ancestors would surely have eaten them - has quite a different
flavour and texture from those in a greengrocers.

We are all aware that tomatoes, oranges, bananas and soft fruit are picked unripe and, we are told,
ripen on the way to us as consumers.  (Sometimes they are forced-ripened by chemicals, but let's
not go there.)  But it is only recently when I found I PREFERRED apricots and plums that had fallen,
'over-ripe' to the ground, that likely had exposed flesh and that were squelchy-soft, even dribbly-
soft, that I can see how hard it is for city-dwellers to eat paleo fruit.

When greengrocer's fruit goes soft, it is usually going bad; when fresh fruit is going soft on the
tree, it is quite different: it is approaching perfection.

I don't know if the sugar content (and glycaemic index) varies significantly between shop fruit and
ripe, really ripe fruit; certainly the sweetness and flavour are vastly different.

Keith