BRIX Blue Ribbon

On a quest for the best strawberry, I took my BRIX meter to my local farmers’ market. What’s a BRIX meter? It’s a device that measures sugars and other nutrients in a few drops of juice. It looks like a little telescope. When you look through the eyepiece, it tells you the quality of your food on a scale of 0 to 32.

I had no idea how the farmers would respond to my request to test their strawberries. So, I promised to buy the ones with the highest BRIX! The samples were already there for tasting.  I just wanted folks to know what I was doing. After all, it might look a little weird to bite a strawberry in half then rub a little juice onto the BRIX meter, which is exactly what I did!

This week, the “BRIX BLUE RIBBON” award goes to Three Springs Fruit Farm! Three Springs has stands at farmers’ markets in MD, PA, and VA. Their berries had the highest score of the day with a solid 10. Better than the 6 logged by another farm stand. A 10 is average for strawberries, but high enough that the fruit was sweet and palatable. I am guessing that as summer progresses, the numbers will rise. Ben Wenk of Three Springs tells me he achieves better berries through the quality of his soil and by testing three varieties to see which grow better. I should have told him that at NaturalCheck, we love testing, too.

Join the quest for the best produce! Email us at Testing@NaturalCheck.com or comment here with the best BRIX you can find. Haven’t tried a BRIX meter yet? No problem. NaturalCheck has two varieties for you to choose from.

Wouldn’t it be great to know where to find the best produce? A few volunteers in the same town could post results online for thousands to share. What do you think?