Current Issue ChemFusion
Wrapped for Ripeness
It’s alive! The banana’s alive! So is the broccoli and the asparagus and the melon! A new horror movie? No. But real life horror for fruit and vegetable marketers. Such produce contains living cells which continue to “respire” even after picking, inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide and water. During respiration, which is exactly the opposite of photosynthesis, oxygen reacts with stored glucose, and provides the energy needed to fuel the reactions we interpret as “ripening.” Complex starches are broken down to simple sugars, acidic compounds are reduced, the texture is softened and the colours that signal ripening appear. ...
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