Actually, the show has at least partially answered this question.
Ned ends up visiting Chuck’s aunts, and they present him with a slice of pie prepared at his bakery. Ned realises that it’s his pie (and by extension, that Chuck is anonymously sending pie to her aunts) because the fruit that he previously resurrected goes rotten in his mouth.
I’d hazard a guess that anything that isn’t remotely close to its original state is probably exempt though, since the flour in the pie crust didn’t magically turn into sheafs of wheat. So as long as Ned stays away from whole fish and unprocessed fruits/veggies, he’s probably okay.
So, from this, I can only assume that Ned actually DOES “resurrect” a day’s worth of fruit at a time or something like that, rather than a pie’s worth. Because the pie he ate at the aunts’ was specially baked by Chuck. It had the feel-good stuff in it and the gruyere on it.
On the note of baking pies with resurrected rotten fruit… does Ned ever just go ahead and bake pies with fresh ingredients? You know, fruit that’s still ripe?
Or does he use the rotten stuff just because it’s cheaper?
Remember, when he resurrects that rotten strawberry to put in a pie, another thing has to die – how does he know it’s not going to be a slice of apple that’s already baking in another pie? Seems a bit risky…
While it’s never been said straight out, it looks like the substitute for a resurrected person/animal/thing will always be something that hasn’t died before and also been resurrected by Ned.
So as long as the apple in the other pie is also resurrected, he should be fine and dandy.
He keeps daisies in the kitchen to take the hit for the fruit.
Yet every time we see him resurrecting fruit for pies, he resurrects a strawberry (for example) and sticks it in a pie, and picks up the next berry.
Of course, I suppose he could fill a bowl or something with resurrected berries and leave them in the fridge, so that Olive doesn’t get suspicious that there are never any fresh fruits around except those in the pies, . . .
I think this is mostly one of those issues we aren’t supposed to think about too hard.
He seems to have a working system with live flowers he grows. It appear the random thing that dies is not something he has already resurrected. So, he is actually better off always using rotten fruit.
We just found out he has a store room of rotten fruit, so it appears jayjay is correct about him keeping a days worth on hand.
The other aspect about his resurected fruit is that it never goes rotten again - or is atleast ‘lots fresher’ from the time it gets baked than any other fruit he could get. ( I am fairly sure this is touched upon in the Pie-lette).
Its why his Pies are so much better than anyone elses.
Which would seem to indicate, much like the pile of leaves, that the ‘dead’ thing in question doesn’t need all its parts to come back to whatever ‘life’ it may have had.
