A scene that has lived rent-free in my brain ever since the film was released 25 years ago is that moment in in Notting Hill, when Will (played by Hugh Grant) is meeting potential partners and finds himself dining with a self-proclaimed “fruitarian”.
She explained: “We believe that fruits and vegetables have feelings, so we think cooking is cruel. We only eat things that have actually fallen from the tree or bush and are in fact dead already.”
This scene is played for laughs, but after learning about the real truth of fruits and vegetables, I think his date may have actually been onto something.
A study published back in 2013 found that store-bought cabbage, lettuce, spinach, sweet potatoes, blueberries and carrots responded to light-dark cycles up to about a week after harvest.
Not only that, but when this produce was kept on the same cycle as a predator, the cabbage looper moth caterpillars (try saying that quickly), the foods were better able to resist attacks.
Janet Braam, a plant biologist at Rice University in Houston, Texas and author on the study, explained to National Geographic that circadian clocks tell plants when seasons change due to variations in day length but this clock also provides a key survival intinct in plants .
″[Plants] know when the insects eat, so they can prepare a defence in advance,” she said.
While this is obviously fascinating if slightly surreal to imagine, researchers highlighted that it also meant they could prevent crop damage, saying: “The destruction of harvested crops due to pest damage can destroy some 30 percent of the food that’s harvested.
“In sub-Saharan Africa, this is critical. If you could reduce that, we’d have much greater food security.”
I’m going to have to forget this before I have the salad I planned for lunch, tbh.
