If we interpret the myth to be all supermarket fresh fruit and veg is months old then you have dispelled that because some truly is fresh, days from harvest. If we take it to be supermarket fresh fruit and veg varies from days to many months old then you have provided ample evidence for that. Not all is fresh. As well some commercially grown produce can never be sold at its best, it changes in minutes or hours after cutting or it cannot be transported when ripe.
So the good part is: if it wasn’t for refrigeration and the modern supply chain much produce would only be available for quite limited periods of the year and truly local produce for less than that.
But: in making produce available all year around supermarkets and other suppliers have tortured the meaning of “fresh” beyond reason. An apple that has been in storage for 9 months isn’t “fresh” by any useful meaning of the word.
So what do we want? Some want the impossible; to have truly fresh produce out of season. Consider the (slightly more realistic) hypothetical where, alongside the unit price, an accurate date of harvest is displayed on every item for sale. Will that fix the problem? Will that result in fresh produce nirvana?
To get some idea of where that might lead let us ask Colesworths just once to publish a snapshot of the actual age of their produce from harvest to sale. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA… now I am tired from too much ROFLMAO, need a cup of tea.
