Strawberries

April 12, 2004 - Ed and the Giant Strawberry

When you surf the Internet, you can find all sorts of claims, speculations, conjectures, and lunacy. For instance, did you know that the moon landings were faked at a Hollywood sound stage? Or, how about the picture shown on the left? It is claimed to be “a real photo taken near the South African coast during a military exercise by the British Navy.” Looks like the Golden Gate Bridge, don’t you think?

Well, Ed and the dedicated staff have no interest in contributing to the spread of bad information. We feel it is okay to generalize, but only when our generalizations have some basis in fact. And even though Ed felt very strongly that the biggest strawberries in a basket were the ones on the top, we did not want to say so without some berry good data to back our claim. So, it was off to the Saturday Farmer’s Market! You might have seen us there. We were the ones wearing our brand new edhat t-shirts!

At the market, we bought four 3-packs of berries from four different vendors. To stay within budget, we had to pass on the $10 price-does-not-matter 3-pack at Harry’s Berries. Instead, we paid market prices that averaged to be $5.33. At each vendor, we selected our lovely strawberries at random, often leaving other shoppers behind stewing over which basket to select.

Back at our office, we went to work dividing the little red beauties into three groups: 1) those visible from the top; 2) those visible from the bottom; 3) ones visible from neither bottom nor top. As we sorted, the fragrant aroma of the strawberries overcame our senses and filled our hearts with joy, serenity, and hunger. We daydreamed of running barefoot through fields of wild berries carrying picnic baskets and wearing Easter bonnets. Bunnies and butterflies escorted us along the way. The sunshine was so sweet, that we could taste it. Smell is a wonder sense, isn’t it?

Once our daydreams had subsided and the sorting was complete, the groups counted and weighed. We found the average basket of strawberries to contain 17 berries and weigh 416 grams. The baskets with smaller strawberries tend to contain more berries and therefore weigh more than the baskets with larger strawberries - if you are interested in getting more berry-for-your-buck, buy the smaller ones.

As far as top/bottom comparison is concerned, we found conclusive results. In each of the four 3-packs, the berries on the top out weighed the ones below. Overall, the average weight of a top-berry was 28 grams. By comparison, the middle-berries weighed in at 21 grams each, and bottom-berries tipped the scale at 22 grams each. Who would have thunk? Ed was right!

Now, that we have hard data to support our generalization, we are not going to raise the conspiracy flag over the strawberry growers of California. While it is possible someone is trying to shortchange our shortcake topping, it is also possible that the uneven distribution of berries might just be the consequence of proper packaging.

For the contest, top-berries proved to be 25% bigger than the bottom ones and there was an average of 17 berries/basket. The winner was Gretty (25%/19) who can choose movie tickets, coffee card, or an edhat shirt. The shirts are cool, but as the dedicated staff found out in our post-analysis eating frenzy, strawberries can stain them.

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