As a famous saying goes, “the eye wants its share, “ and a perfectly shaped, shiny orange with a garish, uniform color certainly looks very inviting; In most cases, however, this beauty is all the result of deception and rarely amounts to a synonym for genuineness!
So let us begin to shed light on the meaning of treated citrus fruit and learn to recognize the fruits that are not:
Treating fruits means improving their appearance by using pesticides and chemical agents; certainly the fruits will look beautiful and free of imperfections in our eyes, but at what price?
The price we pay is that of not being able to use the fruits 100%, forcing us not to consume them in the kitchen to make jams, desserts or savory dishes and forcing us to be very careful in recognizing them when we go to buy them to avoid running into high risks to our health (if they are oranges from non-European countries, the risk is even higher since pesticides are used that are banned by us instead).
WHAT TREATED ORANGES LOOK LIKE
Treated oranges thus present themselves with a shiny, smooth skin free of imperfections due to the use of phytochemicals that prevent insects from settling inside them.This treatment is done by a process that involves coating the fruit with wax-based substances and other chemical agents that will make sure to prevent the proliferation of fungi, usually triggered when the fruit is stalled in warehouses for many weeks, for example, for the period from the time the oranges are picked until they arrive in stores.
WHAT UNTREATED ORANGES LOOK LIKE
Untreated oranges can therefore be recognized by their not always perfect and uneven peel, with speckles on the surface and often with the leaves still attached, characteristics that we do not always find in the stores we usually go to, mainly due to the lack of clarity of the tags containing the INCI of the products.
We must always be careful that citrus fruits are not subjected to all these treatments, making them inedible and harmful to health, trying to rely on retailers who instead guarantee their quality proudly singing the motto“better ugly but good“!
This is why we at Sicilia Agrumi are committed to meeting the needs of our customers, happy to produce citrus and various products without the use of pesticides or treatments; our untreated products are shipped to your doorstep every Monday within hours of harvest, guaranteeing their quality, goodness and freshness!
They may not all be beautiful…but they sure taste good!
