"Thomas E. Billings" wrote:

> The household fruit is much better than the commercial, of course.
>

Not necessarily---and you have reminded me of a funny story.  An elderly aunt (now dead)
who had retired to Florida many years ago invited me to stop by every time I passed
through.  She had a huge grapefruit tree in her back yard and enjoyed loading up her
northern visitors when they headed back.  Of course, she insisted I always take several
bags.  I, without fail after tasting one, always later threw them out, generally into
the compost pile of a friend who lived not too far away.

One day, when she made the predicted offer, I murmured that "a couple of grapefruit"
would do.  Unbeknownst to me, other family members had filled her in on my eternal quest
for decent fruit.  Anyway, when I made the polite decline she abruptly said, "You're not
eating the grapefruit I've been giving you, have you?"

I blushed and stood there.  She then added, "They're sour as owl-sh*t, aren't they---I
wonder if anyone else can eat them?"  It was quite a phrase to come out of a little old
lady, but we *did* communicate.  She never offered me another.


> No commercial fruit - try the households south of the Pineda Causeway.

Well, I saw no reason to keep going in that direction.  I can tell you that I've sampled
backyard citrus from several hundred people in various areas of Florida and it was, with
a single exception, *all* uniformly low or average quality stuff.  More than one of
those backyarders got a visit from me because they had received a big ballyhoo in the
newspapers.  I assume the news stories were ordered when the backyarder's garden club
contemporaries called the garden editor with some story about "you should see the fruit
Joe grows."  At least that was the case for the one time I literally tracked down a
reporter and demanded to know why she had published such a glowing account of such
lackluster fruit.

Of course if you're telling me that I miraculously, or mysteriously, missed the only
area that had such delectable fare, I'll have to take your word for it.  :)


> I had friends and sources, but have not lived there since the early 80's.
> The fruit I got from there was simply incredible. Can you believe
> grapefruit that were sweeter than any/all California *oranges*

I assume you know that California oranges, as a whole, are not particularly sweet, per
the Florida growers.  Interestingly, I did once find a grove of good tasting grapefruit
near Disneyworld.  I spoke to the superintendent to buy some and he had no idea why they
were so much better than the run of the mill.  I guess he was telling the truth because
I returned the following year and found the quality had severely declined.


> limes that were as sweet as regular (store bought) grapefruit? Oranges so
> sweet you can drink only a little juice. Mangoes bursting with flavor
> (store mangos are pathetic in comparison), sweet papayas that were
> fantastic...
>

Yeah, you're right: I'm having trouble believing, but your descriptions are surely
making my mouth water.  Those are the words to describe high Brix stuff.


> Also, the excuse that "all-raw" or fruitarianism will fail unless one gets fruit of
> impossibly high quality, indicates, if the claim is true, just how impractical such
> dietary regimes are in the real world.

Well, I don't consider 'excellent' as impossibly high quality.  But let me do a reality
check: are you saying that it's possible for a long-term fruitarian to succeed?  I
thought I was merely adding to your earlier claim that they will fail by saying that
they were *certain* to fail unless they took quality into the equation.


> As much as we would like to, most cannot grow their own foods, and testing everything
> with a Brix meter seems impractical to some of us.

Fully agreed---my thought all along is that the consumer should simply have access to
the data.  It's being recorded, but the big food companies don't want it publicly known
because the consumers would howl for better quality.  Why in the world can't they simply
put the Brix number---or any other true quality test---right on the box?

In the meanwhile, I recommend that people simply try to identify those farms (or even
back yard trees) that are known to have higher quality.  If you get, say, high Brix
lettuce from a certain farm, you're likely to get other high Brix produce there as well.

Thanks for your comments,
Rex Harrill
PS: how in the world did they drag you away from all that super fruit on the part of
Merritt below the causeway?