honeycrisp apples

Photo: Lew Robertson/Getty Images

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The age of the fruit they're selling matters less than you think.
Over the last few years, while many of us have been trying to buy more seasonally, Lori Taylor, the produce-industry expert who writes The Produce Mom blog gladly buys fruit she knows has been in storage, or on a ship, for a few months. She didn't hesitate to purchase Honeycrisp apples when she saw them in stores in June, even though she knew they were grown late last year. Taylor explains that such produce (most often apples, bananas, kiwifruit, persimmons, tomatoes, cantaloupes and avocados) is stored in climate-controlled rooms and has had all the oxygen sucked out of it to drastically slow down the fruit-ripening process. "[The fruit] just goes to sleep," she says, so its "season" is extended—a perk for those who are open to buying, say, apples in June.