What a mango asks about carrots and water

It's just started to rain. That light rain that slowly gets heavier and heavier and where the air is still and thick. A thunder storm is not far away.

The weather has little to do with eating a mango. Eating a mango in the tropical heat of an impending summer storm feels the right thing to do though. Almost as if I'm in the tropics far away - just me and my thoughts and mango juice dripping from my hands and down my arms. It's luxury to eat so decadently.

This mango came from Derby. It was plucked from a tree by a friend and boxed up with a dozen or so other South bound mangoes. Just as fresh and as ripe and as chemical free as can be. Perfect.

All this mango heaven got me thinking about carrots - and water. My nephew brought around a fresh garden carrot the other day. Plucked from their garden and brought right to our front door you'd think it would just be the tastiest, crunchiest carrot in existence. But it's not. Within no time at all it was soft and soggy and you'd barely contemplate eating it. I got to asking "why does this carrot, so fresh from the ground and so free of chemicals, get to be so soggy when the ones we buy in the shop stay crisp and strong for so long?" What's the difference?

Which brought me to water. The other night on the tube there was a feature on fluoridation of water. Here in Perth our water is fluoridated. We don't get to chose if we want it fluoridated or not - it just is. And this brings me back to carrots. I don't know what's in those shop-bought carrots that are so crisp and taste so fresh. Are they genetically modified? Do they contain chemicals that could be doing me harm? Why do they stay so crisp?

Of course I'll probably never know the answer. But one thing I do know is that mango was simply delicious. And being that it was plucked from a tree in a back yard, untouched and unpreserved by chemicals it was a real gift to enjoy.