At least in the US, prunes seem to have a reputation as disgusting and only for old people needing regularity. But I can’t figure out why – they’re tasty and healthy snacks. In fact, I like them better than dried apricots or dates, neither of which seem to have the grimace-inducing reputation that prunes so often do. So why are prunes singled out?
Good question.
I know there’s been some attempt to rebrand them as “dried plums” to escape the stigma.
Heh. I once made my kids an African/Moroccan stew that was absolutely delicious. Everyone had seconds. My son asked how I made it and I went over it step by step.
When I mentioned adding the prunes, his eyes bugged out. He thought he was going to have explosive, uncontrollable diarrhea and he thought I was a madman. That was 15 or so years ago and he still is cautious about eating my cooking.
I think the word “prune” just sounds funny. And their laxative effect is funny because, well diarrhea is also funny. I still remember an old Johnny Carson Carnac joke:
A: Runner-up
Q: What do you call a drink made with 7-Up and prune juice?
Prunes are meh for me. I prefer raisins. Somehow Prune Bran cereal wouldn’t sell as well.
Worf wouldn’t agree with you!
“Prune juice! A warrior’s drink!”
Funny - I was wondering the same thing a few days ago when I bought a package of prunes. I remember I thought to myself, they should call these dried plums. I consider them better than raisins because they’re not as dry. I know prunes and prune juice are generally only thought of as a poop booster, but I wonder if eating a fresh plum is just as good for that? Or does it have to be dried to get the benefits?
I eat dried fruit nearly every day. Apricots, dates and prunes are my top three. I also enjoy my own apples, pears and plums that I dry in the fall. My dried plums are nothing like the prunes I buy. I try not to overdry and then vacuum pack and freeze so they don’t mold.
But, yeah, not sure why they get such a bad rap. I think they are great.
Pretty sure it’s a matter of concentration; it’s easy to sit down and eat 5-6 prunes in a sitting without it being much of a problem, but eating the equivalent amount of fresh plums is likely to be more messy and difficult.
As far as the colonic effects, they’re due to the presence of sorbitol- it’s a sugar alcohol that draws water into your poop via osmotic effects.
Sunsweet apparently tried to change the perception of Prunes back in the 1960s. In a stroke of genius they got Stan Freberg to make them advertisements. This one is classic:
He also did this one with Ray Bradbury (!!)It could be that sone folks just don’t like sticky-sweet foods that leave a slimy coating in the mouth after the diner does finally manage to swallow them.
They have new commercials these days. I don’t like prunes, though.
I like prunes and it’s been months since I’ve had any. This thread reminded me to get some at the store!
What I do have at home (which I like even more than regular prunes) are dried salted prunes / plums, which are a popular snack in China, Southeast Asia and Mexico:
Some people find them addictive:
I’ve yet to meet a non-Asian who likes them; the addicted author of the article linked above seems to be the exception. I’ve heard Caucasians who pride themselves on being adventurous eaters say that they’re disgusting. Whether it’s because, prunes, or if they just don’t care to acquire the taste, I don’t know .
I like them, and I’m not Asian at all.
I’d say that prunes are looked at askance in the UK, probably to the same extent as they are in the US, and for (among others) the spread of reasons given so far in this thread. I have something of a struggle to see their good points. For me, it’s not about their reputed effects on one’s “internal economy” – though that is a venerable joke over here too. It’s more that: for a long while in this country, prunes’ most frequent appearance was in stewed form, as a dessert (served more often than not, with custard): presented thus, the damned things looked so unappealing – wrinkled, dark-brown-to-black quasi-plums, swimming in juice of the same colour; and with what was often perceived as a sweet but slightly musty / meaty taste. Prunes in this form, more or less begged to be felt to have overtones of the cheap-and-nasty – highly-inexpensive fodder suitable for shovelling at “institution inmates” of all kinds.
More-enlightened Brits have long known that other, preferable things can be done with prunes – they can go in savoury dishes, for example – and in recent decades, that knowledge has become more widespread here. And the light has dawned, that they are OK as a dried-fruit snack. I’m not a very great prune fan myself: confess to being largely lukewarm or worse, about things fruit-and-veg in general.
Me neither. What about prunes, though? Or are you having a different kind of prunes than me?
You can have my share, if you like them. A diet heavy in prunes would do you a world of good.
IMHO, prunes get a bad rap for reasons already mentioned: the word is unappetizing, they look like little turds, and the stigma of being ‘old-people food’.
I “discovered” them as an adult. I like them, and convinced my kids to like them as well. Altho, since they are not “cool”, they usually consume them quietly and alone. I reinforced the healthy qualities of prunes (er, dried plums). We like all kinds of dried fruit, so it was not much of a stretch.
I confess I stayed clear of them when I was young. The only way I was exposed to them was when they put canned prunes that were soaked in some sort of syrup in a small, white paper cup on the cafeteria trays at lunch time. Slimy and brown. No one ate them (because doing so would be ‘uncool’, and ‘gross’), so I would guess close to 100% of them were thrown away.
Omg I love prunes. I also can’t be eating dried fruits because they’re little sugar bombs according to my pancreas. But my mom bought me a canister of them not too long ago. I had to hide them from myself because I was eating them like candy.
I don’t know why people don’t like them, other than they have a stigma of being “old people food.”
Everything about that woman’s expression and demeanour screams “I JUST POOPED AND IT WAS WOOONNNNNDERFUL!! I FEEL SO LIGHT AND UNENCUMBERED … BY POOP!!”
Not only that, they* look* funny. Wrinkly purple testicle-sized orbs–their mere appearance invites an infinite number of off-color jokes.
Incidentally, do they sell chopped prunes? Maybe they’d be more popular if people didn’t have to eat them whole.