Truth in Advertizing…

Last week MJ and I did our usual thing Saturday, grocery shopping. In the produce area, I was immediately drawn to the oranges, navel specifically. They are my favorite fruit, after cheap bananas. Sweet, easy to peel, juicy, no pits to discard, great source of fiber and Vitamin C, an almost perfect fruit. But right there in front of me was another fruit, called a Minneola. Round, orange with a knob, the sign said they were similar to navel oranges, sweet, east to peel and juicy. Now I am a progressive shopper so three Minneola it was.

I have eaten two of them and so here is my review. Minneola, I am disappoint.

Easy to peel? Not so much. The skin is tough, was difficult to get a finger under and I ended up cutting the skin with a knife to even get it started.

Sweet? Not so much. Not sour like a grapefruit but certainly not in the same class as a navel orange.

No pits? Found several…

Juicy? Well yes, that part is true. Juicy enough to cover my desk, shirt, pants, several napkins and a couple of keyboard keys that are now sticking a bit.

So I go to Wikipedia to find out more about this fruit, to find out who their lobbyists are so as to make a mental note of it when I found out that this mystery fruit is just a tangelo. TANGELO! I have heard of them, cross between tangerine and other citrus fruit. It’s just a hybrid with a good publicist. Much like the kiwi (formerly Chinese gooseberry) and dried plums (prunes) it had an identity crisis and some advertizing genius (sorry collegeboy) got his hands on it and rebranded it with exaggerated claims and promises. Well this is one shopper that won’t get fooled again.

I give the Minneola one penguin.

Why one, not zero penguins you ask. I mean it is fresh fruit, does have Vitamins and fiber so it can’t be too bad. But in the immortal words of a little rascals character…” it might choke Artie but it won't choke Stymie.”