How to buy delicious and nutritious cucumbers
The weather is getting hotter and hotter, whether in the supermarket or in the market, you can always see a basket of bright green cucumbers. Some of them are straight and "highly nutritious" and relatively expensive, while others are curved. Not so good, but the price is affordable.
So, how do you choose high-quality cucumbers?
Should the cucumber be bent well or straight?
When buying cucumbers, many friends like cucumbers with straight shapes and bright colors. They think that straight cucumbers are very long, easy to handle when cutting, and have a high "value", which is pleasant. Vegetable growers also like to grow this cucumber. Don't worry about sales. However, planting cucumbers is easy to bend, and not all cucumbers can grow straight.
Generally speaking, naturally-growing cucumbers are connected to vines. Coupled with many factors, such as light, temperature, fertilization, etc., they will bend when they grow. However, if the melon frame is reasonable, and the leaves are picked, watering and fertility are good, the cucumber can still grow straight.
Therefore, we cannot simply judge the quality of cucumbers by whether they are curved or straight. A curved cucumber is not a good cucumber. Usually, the sowing conditions do not meet the standards, and the use of drugs and over-fertilization are not ruled out for straight cucumbers of the same thickness.
Three tips for picking cucumbers
Look at "Head Flower"
When the older generation buy cucumbers, they always like to choose "thorny head flowers", thinking that this kind of cucumber is the freshest. If this method was feasible in the past, but now the "head flower" cucumber is not necessarily fresh, and it may be "hormonal cucumber." For ordinary cucumbers, the yellow florets on the top will wither and fall off on their own within 3-5 days after picking. If the front flowers of the cucumber you buy are bright and tough, and feel more "firm" to the touch, it is mainly because the vegetable grower is studying the young fruit. This is caused by "p-chlorophenoxy acetic acid". This is regarded as a kind of "hormonal cucumber" and is not recommended for purchase.
But for the "handled" cucumbers, we can buy them with confidence. The surface of fresh cucumbers will have small white spines, dense and small, with some spines to the touch. After rubbing, the thorns gradually disappear, but the cucumber is no longer fresh at this time, so you can judge whether the cucumber is fresh by the thorns.
Look at the color
Cucumbers that grow after sufficient light are green and shiny. At this time, cucumbers taste the best, crispy, juicy, sweet and delicious, but as time goes by, the color of cucumbers will become deeper and deeper. Do not buy black soft cucumbers. At this time, the cucumbers are old, taste bad and not fresh.
Look at the thickness of cucumber
Generally, the thickness of a common cucumber is the same from top to bottom. If the cucumber you encounter is too thick or too thin, it is recommended not to buy it. Cucumbers have a long growth cycle and will grow into old cucumbers. This kind of cucumber doesn't taste good. The effect is poor, another reason may be to promote growth, use hormones to accelerate ripening, eating is not healthy, and most thin cucumbers are immature, and the juice is not crispy, so it is not recommended to buy these two cucumbers.