Fruit Isn't Sweet Anymore

I was unpacking my lunch at work yesterday, a monumental task as i do almost no prep work at home, preferring to just cram it all in the bag and do it at the time. My coworker (we'll call him Alan for blogging purposes) was watching me nosily as i was setting out my fruit and getting ready to make my sandwich.

Alan: You are the most fruit-eating person i know.
Me: I dig fruit. It keeps me honest.
Alan: Honest? Like how?
Me: I'm a sweets freak. If i don't get something sweet at EVERY meal, i go nuts on chocolate or ice cream at the end of the meal. If i eat fruit, i can get away with eating one small sinful thing after supper.
Alan: I don't see how fruit could qualify as something sweet.
Me: What are you talking about?
Alan: I don't know. Fruit just isn't sweet anymore. I think it has to be all the chemicals they use in farming now adays.
Me: . . . Well, do you think organic fruit tastes sweeter?
Alan: No, not really.

At that point, i figured i'd better drop it before i said something smartassy he wouldn't forgive me for for a few days. I finished making my sandwich and started slicing the strawberries for my yogurt. Then i gathered it all up and sat down. Alan stared at me as i was eating my fruit. For fruit, i had brought some grapes, some strawberries to put in my yogurt and a huge piece of cantaloupe. The cantaloupe, however, was the big prize. It tasted like it had been brined in sugarwater before i ate it! I cut off a piece and handed it to Alan.

Me: This thing tastes like i dipped the whole thing in sugar and let it sit overnight.

Alan dubiously put the piece of cantaloupe in his mouth and chewed it up with the most EEEEW! look on his face.

Alan: Jesus, that didn't taste like anything! That wasn't cool at all, Christie.

I was absolutely dumbstruck! How could he possibly have found that to be flavourless? Did he really think i was playing a joke on him? I shrugged and continued to eat it as he watched me in horror.

Me: It tastes fantastic to me, man. I wouldn't sit here and suffer through an unripened cantaloupe for the sake of playing a joke on you. I'm just not that committed to a joke.

He shuddered and finally started to eat his own lunch. He had brought in a subway sandwich (yuck, imo), two 24 ounce bottles of Mountain Dew, a king sized Snickers bar and some chips. As i watched him down the first Mountain Dew in a few gulps, i could understand why he didn't find fruit to be sweet anymore. Compared with all the sugar and high fructose corn syrup he was consuming, i probably wouldn't have been able to taste the sweet in the cantaloupe either.

I thought back to when i started Weight Watchers. I've always been a fruit person, but i've damn-near quadrupled my daily fruit intake since i joined. When i first started eating a lot more fruit, i didn't think it was very sweet either, but i thought it was just because nothing's really in season in January. As i've been taking in less and less sugars and corn syrups, fruit has been seeming sweeter and sweeter to me. Really, i thought it was because of the progression of the seasons (and i'm sure to some degree, it is), but now i'm thinking that the sheer volume of sugar and corn syrup in the average person's diet anymore is probably the reason fruit isn't considered a "sweet" anymore. If that's the case, we're really ripping ourselves off. Fruit fucking rocks!