When you think about {that a} watermelon is 92% water, it’s no surprise the fruit is a bona fide staple through the hottest months of the yr. However not each melon is as tasty as it’s hydrating: All too usually you chunk right into a slice solely to find that the within is mealy, bland, and decidedly unappetizing.
Odds are you’ve been catfished like this earlier than. So how do you forestall it from taking place once more? Pinpointing a tasty melon may seem to be a magic trick or delicate agricultural artwork, however there are literally some straightforward methods to select a great one so that you don’t waste your cash—and you’ll expertise all of its refreshing, antioxidant-packed goodness with out having to choke down a dud. Right here’s what it is advisable know.
1. Rounder is healthier…
Melons are available in all totally different sizes and styles—some are small, some huge, some rectangular, some spherical—however the “good and fats” ones are most likely going to be your finest guess, Lee Wroten, a Georgia-based watermelon farmer and the present president of the Nationwide Watermelon Promotion Board, tells SELF. “In the event that they’re actual lengthy and actual skinny, they haven’t been given time on the vine to plump up and actually fill out and attain their full maturity,” he says.
2. …And so is heavier.
When it comes to weight, select melons which can be heavy and dense for his or her dimension. “If you wish to be scientific, pick two similar-size watermelons and weigh them on the grocery retailer scale,” Julie Backyard-Robinson, PhD, RD, a professor and extension specialist at North Dakota State College, tells SELF. Heaviness, she notes, is a robust indicator of juiciness—and who desires a dry melon?
3. Search for bruises, scars, and different blemishes.
Subsequent, look over the rind to verify it’s not too soiled or broken, in line with Wroten and Dr. Backyard-Robinson. Whereas small nicks and scrapes gained’t have an effect on the standard of the flesh, Wroten says, a “good, clear watermelon” conjures up extra confidence than a beat-up one—and a closely bruised melon could possibly be softer and mushier on the dangerous websites. (For those who do occur to purchase a melon with some bruising, it’s not the top of the world. As with an apple, you’ll be able to all the time slice across the dangerous spots, Wroten factors out.)
4. Test the colour on the underside.
that off-color patch on the underside of a watermelon? Effectively, it has a reputation—the sphere spot—and its hue is a dependable determinant of ripeness, in line with Wroten.
Principally, the sphere spot refers back to the melon’s level of contact with the bottom whereas it was hooked up to the vine. Yellow discipline spots point out the fruit “ripened within the discipline,” Dr. Backyard-Robinson says. By the identical token, white discipline spots recommend “the melon wasn’t allowed to mature on the vine,” Wroten says. And an immature or underripe melon is much less more likely to style good.
5. Give it a great knock or two.
Each watermelon that passes on the conveyor belt through the packaging and grading course of at Wroten’s farm will get “thumped,” he says. And for good cause: The ensuing sound can inform you numerous in regards to the melon, together with whether or not it’s strong on the within or not.
If you smack a watermelon with the palm of your hand, hear for a pleasant “ping.” For those who hear a weak, uninteresting thud as a substitute—“form of such as you’re hitting a chunk of wooden,” Wroten says—be cautious. Irrespective of how good the melon appears to be like on the surface, that sound may point out a flaw like bruising, overripeness, or hollowness.
