by BRAD BUCK, UF/IFAS
You can taste them now – sweet, succulent strawberries. February and March mark the peak time for Florida strawberry production, and University of Florida experts point to several reasons consumers gobble up the juicy fruit.
“Strawberries are tasty because they are sweet and slightly tangy. This comes from the sugars and acids in them,” said Joshua Payne, a family and consumer sciences agent for UF/IFAS Extension Hillsborough County.
People flock to Florida for strawberries this time of year. When they get to the Florida Strawberry Festival, many line up for the star of the show–strawberry shortcake.
“It’s a classic,” said Payne, a native of Plant City, home to the festival. “I think it is a fan favorite because of the different textures. The cake is fluffy and buttery, the strawberries are juicy, and then the whipped cream on top is light and airy.”
“I know, working the festival in high school and college, we had a lot of people from Canada that would come to the strawberry festival,” Payne said. “I think it is probably because it’s one of the few places you can get it locally and fresh, especially at the U-picks.”
Look around Hillsborough, Polk and Manatee counties, and you’ll see about 14,000 acres of strawberries.
In addition to tasting great, strawberries are full of nutrition. For instance, they’ve got lots of vitamin C.
“I know when people think of vitamin C, their first thought is citrus, but strawberries actually have more vitamin C in them — when compared cup to cup,” Payne said. “They also have natural sugars in them but also fiber, which is good for digestion.”
Florida produces about 11 percent of the nation’s strawberries, and most of the berries grow during the winter, when other states cannot produce fresh fruit.
Andrea Nikolai, a registered dietitian and the family and consumer sciences agent for UF/IFAS Extension Polk County, offers some strawberry selection and care tips:
• They don’t ripen after they are harvested, so select fruit that is fully red so you can enjoy the most sweetness and flavor.
• Store them in the refrigerator until they’re ready to use. The ideal storage temperature for strawberries is 32 to 36 degrees.
• Strawberry flavor is best at room temperature, so you can take the berries out of the refrigerator an hour or two before serving.
• Wait to wash and remove the strawberry caps until they’re ready to use. This helps the berries retain their flavor, nutrients, and texture.
Many of the strawberries that you buy at the grocery store or farmer’s markets or gather from U-picks are the result of countless hours of research by UF/IFAS scientists. Faculty breed them to grow in Florida and in 70 countries.
When they breed new varieties, researchers seek many traits, including flavor and aroma. Just ask Charlie Sims, the food science professor who runs the taste-testing lab at UF’s main campus in Gainesville.
“In the taste lab, we have evaluated a lot of the new varieties that the plant breeders have developed,” Sims said. “We typically do a consumer sensory test where we get about 100 regular consumers of strawberries to taste the new varieties compared to the current and standard varieties in the market to see if they taste as good or hopefully better. This helps ensure that the new varieties really do have a good/better flavor that consumers would want.”
provided by UF/IFAS
