Biology: Osmosis & Grocery Store Produce

[Constance03]

We have been workinging lately with osmosis, and we recently did a lab. It involved putting a piece of celery into different petri dishes, which had different solutions. Distilled water with salt, from 0 g/mL to 2. The less salt in the solution, the celery grew, and then at 1.2 it startes to shrink. A conclusion question we have to answer asks us why grocery store owners spray fresh fruits and vegetables with water. I always thought it was just to keep them fresh. But there must be something to do with the lab, and possibly osmosis. I have looked at many different sources for possible answers, and cannot figure it out. Help please?

 

[Astronuc]

Spraying with water does keep vegetables 'fresh', but I believe that has more to do with reducing the evaporation of the water (dehydration) in the vegetables, which is the reason to spray with water, but also keeping them refrigerated.

 

[Ouabache]

Have you tried some online search engines? (Hint: key words; osmosis celery)

One measure of freshness in vegetables, is "turgor pressure" within the tissue. You have manipulated the tugor pressure by placing the celery in salt solutions of varying concentration all the way down to 0% (distilled water). So now you another key word you might search on "turgor".