- Want to know what this flightless bird,
(bell ringing) kiwifruit, and World War II
have in common?
You're gonna learn that and more in this episode
of "What Am I Even Eating?"
Kiwifruit, or kiwi for short,
is native to eastern China, (bubbles popping)
where the egg-shaped, fuzzy fruit
that kinda looks like balls is called
- [Speaker] Mihoutao.
- Mary Isabel Fraser brought kiwifruit
to New Zealand in 1904,
where they were referred to as Chinese gooseberries.
Mary was a badass.
Not only did this lifelong advocate for educating girls
actually start global kiwi production.
She also was the college principal.
This is 1904, people.
Women in the US couldn't even vote
until like 1920. (crowd booing)
Seeds were planted in 1906. (bubbles popping)
The first fruiting happened in 1910,
and by 1924, not only could women finally vote,
but the kiwi that you've come to love was born.
This Hayward cultivar was named
after its creator, Hayward Wright,
just like Hass avocados are named after Rudolph Hass,
the California postal worker who first grew them
in his backyard.
Most US kiwis are Haywards,
and 98% of US-grown fruit hails from right here
in the Golden State. (bubble popping)
California first experimented
(bubbles popping) with kiwifruit in 1934,
when the USDA first grew vines
at their Plant Introduction Station in Chico, California.
The plants can be either male or female,
and they can take up to seven years
to reveal their sex, worst gender reveal party ever.
(crowd laughing)
So the plants are propagated asexually
by grafting fruit-bearing vines
onto rootstock that's been grown from seedlings.
And the vines can produce fruit for 40 years or longer.
So what made kiwifruit go viral?
American military (bubbles popping)
stationed in New Zealand during World War II loved
these gnad-like berries.
And just like that, they were coming to America.
In fact, if you take a kiwifruit
and hold it up to your ear closely,
you can hear Neil Diamond.
(crowd laughing) Just kidding.
By the 1950s, kiwifruit was a hit,
and by the '70s, New Zealand was exporting more kiwifruit
than they actually consume domestically.
But kiwifruit had one major problem, the name.
It was the 1950s,
(bubbles popping) the era of drive-in movies,
poodle skirts, soda fountains, and Elvis,
(patriotic music) back when racism
was less of a political platform
and more of an inner dialogue.
For it was the Cold War, (machine buzzing)
and frankly, (buzzer ringing)
the name Chinese gooseberry
had major Commie vibes. (slot machine ringing)
So New Zealand farmers renamed the fruit.
They named it after the flightless bird endemic to the area,
the kiwi. (horn sounding)
Globally, over four million tons of kiwifruit are harvested
every year, with 50,000 tons coming from California alone.
We do grow over 50% of the nation's fresh produce,
so maybe tell a Republican.
And while Haywards are the most common variety grown here,
there's also mega kiwis and golden kiwis.
Haywards have that iconic fuzzy, brown skin
with that bright green flesh
and those black seeds.
In fact, the fruit has more vitamin C than an orange
ounce for ounce and as much potassium as a banana.
And every part of the kiwi is edible.
Yes, even the skin.
(kiwi crunching)
Can't bring yourself to eat the skin?
No worries.
When you peel kiwifruit, keep it.
Put it in a bag, put it in the freezer,
add it to your next smoothie.
And not all kiwifruit looks like balls.
They vary in fuzziness and size and color,
(laughing) just like balls.
(bubbles popping) From round, smooth, and yellow
to fuzzy, brown, and a little awkward,
there are over 50 different kiwi species.
For example, golden kiwi,
they're thin-skinned with a orange-colored flesh.
So how does this delicious berry get
from Golden State farmers to you?
US-grown kiwis come
from California's temperate river valley area,
with Sacramento and the San Joaquin Valley areas
being the largest producers.
Basically, kiwis grow well where peaches grow well.
And here's the thing.
They grow just like grapes, only much, much bigger.
Just like dudes at a movie theater,
they do not like to sit together.
Like no homo and all that.
One male vine is planted for every eight female vines
to ensure proper production.
The males make the pollen.
The female vines bear the fruit,
and some bees for hire help 'em get jiggy with it.
The vines first start producing leaves in March,
and by May, they're flowering.
The first sign of fruit happens in summer,
and by October, farm workers begin harvesting.
And they do so through November.
This is skilled labor.
The farm workers go under the vines,
and by hand, very carefully snap the stem
away from the vine.
The farm workers then carefully place that picked fruit
in a cloth sling.
It's kind of like a marsupial pouch for farm workers.
The fruit is then transferred into bins
where it is then loaded onto tractors
and then into trucks.
And from there, the fruit goes from the farm
to the packing facility.
It's then inspected for quality,
where it's graded based on its shape, size,
and its weight.
And then from there, it's onto your produce aisle.
And when properly chilled,
kiwifruit can keep for months.
So check out my video on how to buy and store kiwifruit.
Because 40% of the food that's grown in America
goes straight to the landfill.
That's literally one in four bags of groceries
that are purchased just tossed in the bin.
Let's put that in perspective.
Farming one acre of kiwifruit
takes 10,000 gallons of water a day.
We farm 7,000 acres here in California every year.
Just another reason to eat those peels.
And it's not just water.
Food waste accounts for 8% of greenhouse gases globally.
So, climate change and other fake news.
And that's how kiwifruit
went from China to California to you.
(upbeat music)