You're Better Off Buying Fruit With The Stickers Intact For This Unexpected Reason

This might seem bananas; what does a sticker have to do with fruit quality? However, it actually makes a whole lot of sense.

Fruit stickers are carefully designed to avoid harming produce when they're stuck on, but when they're torn or peeled off, they can bruise or tear the skin of the fruit. This damage is often almost imperceptible, but it can cause produce to spoil and decay much faster (for this same reason, you should use caution when peeling the stickers off of fruit).

So when selecting your Honeycrisps, mandarins, or Bartletts, it's best to opt for fruits with the stickers intact whenever possible. However, torn or missing stickers are a much bigger red flag for some fruits than others.

Which fruits are most harmed by torn produce stickers? Generally speaking, torn or missing fruit stickers are a bad sign, but they're much more detrimental to some fruits than others. For example, while a torn sticker can cause serious damage to a delicate-skinned peach, it might not be a big deal for a thick-skinned banana (by the way, you can reuse those banana peels in a refreshing drink).

Hard-skinned fruits that you would typically peel, such as melons, avocados, and pomegranates, aren't likely to suffer much damage when a sticker is torn. However, it may indicate that the fruit has been handled roughly in general, causing the sticker to fall off.

On the flip side, thin-skinned stone fruits, pears, and other fruits you'd normally eat with the peel are most vulnerable. A roughly torn sticker can easily leave the flesh exposed, so you should seek out specimens with perfectly intact stickers whenever possible.

No matter how you slice it, this produce sticker pro tip is worth keeping in mind. If you're looking for more ways to level up your produce-picking game, here's how to select the highest-quality fruits at the supermarket every time.