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Why Do Ripe Fruits Smell Bad?
Borked Pseudo Mailed wrote: I notice that many fruit emit foul odors when ripe. What chemicals are responisble for this? If I had to guess, I'd say small or medium size organic acids from the hydrolysis of the pleasant smelling (ripe stage) esters. Natural odors are complex mixtures. Nevertheless, some pure esters have distinctive odors associated with particular fruits, e.g., pentyl butyrate = pear or apricot but butyric acid = dirty socks. Ethyl butyrate = pineapple. Etc. If you are really talking about ripe fruit, it may be that you are overly sensitive to those trace components. I suggest you see a specialist, preferably someone with an academic affiliation. If you do have this trait, you and your nose might be of interest to those studying olfaction and taste and who would want to know if you have weird receptors or if it's something downstream in the signal processing. If you are near Philadelphia, contact the Monell Center; http://www.monell.org/ . If elsewhere, post your region and people in these newsgroups will direct you to other centers. I notice the stink especially in canned fruits. Most fresh fruits don't have as much of a strong stink even when ripe. However, canned fruits [often dripping in syrup] are an unbearable stench to me. Maybe is something to do with the sugar? I don't know. |
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