To Eat or Not to Eat

Have you eaten a friend green tomato?

Did you know that that tomato wasn’t ripe yet! Being ripe means that a vegetables has matured completely and is ready to be eaten! Sometimes eating un-ripened vegetables is okay, but it is best to eat vegetable that have fully ripened!

Knowing the different signs of ripe vegetables is important when shopping at the grocery store and also important in the harvesting of vegetables for sale. Farmers must be able to harvest their vegetables before they become ripe so that they will remain fresh days after you have purchased them!

So what are some of the signs of a ripened vegetable?

Color

Vegetables often go through color phases when they are ripening. Most vegetables start of green and change to vibrant colors like red, oranges and yellows!

But don’t be fooled, some vegetables are the color green so you must pay attention!

Tomatoes and Bell Peppers are good examples of the change in color that occurs.

Density

Density means how hard something is. Vegetables that have ripened will be soft and east to chew. Un-ripened vegetables will be hard and more difficult to eat!

You can check the density of your vegetables by giving them a squeeze, if they feel hard you should wait to eat them! Be careful not to squeeze to hard, if your vegetables are ripened you could bruise them or rip the skin! Bruising a vegetables will leave brown spots on the skin, you should avoid buying these vegetables. Brown spots are also a sign that the vegetables is over-ripened!

Activity:

Travel to the grocery store with a parent and take a look at all the different vegetables. Helps you parents pick out the vegetables that are ripened for eating now and the vegetables that you can eat in a day or two!

Practice squeezing the vegetables to see how dense they are, but remember don’t squeeze two hard!

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