The Japanese have been making their fruit square! It is a form of fruit conformity that has hit the grocery store with a vengeance! The crafty Japanese farmers have been growing watermelons in containers to make them acquire a square shape. This makes the watermelons have a cube shape when they are done growing.
What are some advantages to cubic watermelons?
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This is why watermelons roll around in your fridge!
They fit in your refrigerator better. Since refrigerators are designed to store rectangular shaped items, it makes sense that a square watermelon would waste less space. They also tip over less. This is because when a circle touches a flat surface the circular shaped watermelon is constantly tangent to the surface of the refrigerator. This is similar to how a wheel on a car is able to move quickly along the road. A wheel stays in a state of constantly falling once it is in motion. Well the same principle holds true for your round watermelon in the fridge. Once it gets knocked by the milk jug as you are trying to make your midnight snack of cereal, the watermelon will want to move around and cause havoc in the fridge. Well, if you have a square watermelon, it will lie flat on the refrigerator surface. This is because a square watermelon is tangent along its parallel line of its rind in relation to the refrigerator. This is unlike the round watermelon, which is tangent to the surface only at a single point in its rind at a time.
- Square watermelons are small and cute and you can give them as presents. Expensive presents though. CNN says that in Japan the price of a square watermelon is as much at $82!!! This is a hefty price to pay when you want some watermelon. In Japan the usual price is around $20. That’s nutty! We know from my last article on watermelon nutritional value that even a big watermelon doesn’t have more than 1,000 to 2,000 calories. So I think a square watermelon would make a good gift but it would be expensive for a family to get used to getting them regularly.
Watermelon Bonkers
- Is it just me or do these square watermelons remind you of Bonkers? Yeah, remember those cubical candies that had fruit flavors. They used to have awesome commercials of people getting served by huge grapes and watermelons. Well, maybe square watermelons are where they got the juice for the square Bonkers….oh wait, Bonkers were artificially flavored.
Sources:
Patterson, Thomas “Japan Corners the Market on Square Fruit”
CNN.com, June 15th, 2001