does anyone ever see organic papaya? I thought it was sold year around (like bananas) but maybe I just don't see it because of where I live.

I'm thinking of just buying the conventional to try, because I've never had one and haven't seen an organic one in monthss. Anyone know if they're doused in chemicals or anything like that? Also..how do you find a ripe papaya?

I've heard that conventional papayas are genetically modified.

most things are

dammit
i hope this gets more responses

I heard that all conventional papayas out of Hawaii are GM. Papayas from Mexico? That I don't know... I have eaten a few.

I've seen the organic ones at Whole Foods, but they are rare. =\

You could move somewhere tropical and grow your own? <3

In my area of the UK, I've never seen organic papayas, but eat lots of them all the same, even if GM!

Papayas are one of my favourite fruits, and a papaya half is a thing of beauty indeed!

iLive - first thing I'd suggest is go for a small papaya rather than a large one. In the UK, I've had small and large and they've all tasted fine.

But when I was in the US last month, I had small ones, which were good, as usual, but a large one tasted...dreadful for some reason. So stick to small.

When is a papaya ripe? It is quite difficult to tell - I've cut them open and been disappointed on occasions, but as a rough rule of thumb, the stalk end should be yellowish and give just a little when pressed.

If in doubt, buy and leave out for a day or two - papayas ripen off the tree.

Remove the seeds, although ingesting a few won't do you any harm, and some people believe the seeds to be beneficial (ie they kill 'parasites').

Papayas are delicious as they are, or with a little squeeze of lime.

Love

Debbie Took
www.rawforlife.co.uk

thankyouuu all

I got a papaya today so I should enjoy that soon hopefully. It's a "red papaya" but it looks green so i'm guessing it will need a bit of ripening since it isn't tooo soft or too red orange. haha

it is medium small size, so hopefully that will be good too

phantom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I heard that all conventional papayas out of
> Hawaii are GM. Papayas from Mexico? That I don't
> know...

I think you are wrong if you mean "produced out", but you are right if you mean "shipped out" of Hawaii. Most papayas from Hawaii are GM. Because it is where they did the GM papaya experiment, which was a big disaster. The GM papaya is made to resist to one pest, but in fact within a few time, it showed that it was very sensible to lots of diseases that the non GM ones, traditional ones, were resistant to. Result: farmers have to spray much more for the GM ones than they had to before with non GM!!! And the other problem: cross pollination. Virtually, you can't find a papaya in Hawaii that has not cross pollinated with the GM ones, even most of organic ones unfortunately.
In Mexico, so far they haven't been so stupid, and they didn't plant GM papayas, and they have plenty of very nice old varieties. They might not be organic, but they are not GM.
During my trip in Hawaii, even if there was huge piles of papayas in the markets, I didn't want to eat one. But in Mexico, in small villages markets, farmers come with their piles of papayas, and there I would eat tons!

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/2008 09:29AM by sgc.

Cool. The one i have is from Belize. I have no idea what they do to them.

We get organic papaya here in California that is grown at Kumu Farms in Hawaii.

bleck, i think it was a bad one. it tasted bitter.