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