You Won’t Like the Reason Why Some Cucumbers Are Wrapped in Foil

You might have wondered once or twice why the cucumbers grown in greenhouses are usually sold wrapped in foil while the world does its best to get rid of plastic and seek for as green solutions as possible. The reason behind that is so trivial that you will hardly believe it.

The truth is that if they weren’t wrapped in foil, you would really hate to buy them. They would look awful and as for their taste, it would be rather bland.

Moreover, they couldn’t be stored near such fruit as apples, pears, mango or bananas since they release a substantial amount of ethylene which drastically reduces the shelf time of cucumbers.

So what’s the point? Well, first of all the fact that cucumbers are wrapped means they have been imported. Local goods usually are not wrapped but as they don’t have to be transported longer distances that does not affect their shelf time. It is estimated that thanks to the foil a cucumber can stay fresh for approximately two weeks.

Secondly, cucumbers grown in greenhouses once wrapped do not lose their juice so fast (it consists of water mostly) and they also stay more elastic and pliable. Once they get dehydrated they begin to look like an old wrinkled potato that nobody wants to buy.

So the only conclusion we can jump to is that… imported cucumbers increase the amount of foil we generate!