Yearly Availability of Fruit

SimonTemplar

I've recently started making my own smoothies and I love it. Before, I wasn't much of a fruit consumer so I know very little about them.

Most of my smoothie ingredients consist of raspberries, blueberries, mango, peach and passion fruit.

A lot of these are in season during spring / summer. I'm wondering if I'll be able to buy them in supermarkets during the rest of the year?

I know a lot of shops sell frozen raspberries so they might be available year round? Not sure about the rest?

Any advice for a newbie on what is probably a stupid question is appreciated :)

L1011

You'll pay rather a lot more for them and they'll have been shipped in from the other side of the world - but usually the berries are available anywhere from 9 months to all year and the other fruits all year around.

50 years ago oranges and [non tinned] tomatos weren't even available in winter so we've come rather a long way

duploelabs

The issue, as the previous posted said, is that that fruit that's out of season here is grown half way across the world. For starters, that fruit is going to have a massive carbon footprint (as is most fruit grown outside the island). Secondly, that fruit is picked when unripe, shipped in zero-oxygen containers to prevent it ripening, and then a day or so before it's put on the shelves it's blasted with oxygen to accelerate the ripening process artificially and in a sunless environment. The issue with the latter is that as it hasn't ripened naturally, you get no sweetness from the produce and also the nutritional content you're hoping to receive is virtually non-existent when compared to fruit that is grown locally and in season.
Then what about frozen fruit?? well due to a recent directive by the FSAI, unless it is grown domestically and then frozen (NOT grown elsewhere and frozen here, be careful of that) it has to be boiled for a few minutes due to hepatitis contamination.
More info on that can be found here https://www.fsai.ie/faqs/berries_hepatitis_a.html

In short, learn to eat (or juice in this case) within the seasons here, more info can be found here

http://www.bestinseason.ie/whats-in-season/

rubadub

I buy and freeze over-ripe fruit to make smoothies. My tesco sell bananas, mango etc for next to nothing when its considered unsaleable as normal produce, when in fact its usually at its ripest and most flavoursome.

You can chop up bananas before freezing so you pop them in a smoothie like ice cubes. They turn to complete mush if defrosted but fine for smoothies.