Fresh Vegetable Recipes

Why are fresh vegetables sprinkled with water at markets?

Currently learning about hypertonic, hypotonic, osmosis, diffusion, etc. and this question came up. Thanks.

Public Comments

1. so they can stay fresh
2. well at my local markets, they have these mister things to keep the veggies fresha and clean
3. to keep them fresh it helps slow the aging process of them.
4. To remove pesticides and it also makes it look more appealing.
5. To keep them looking fresh longer, to preserve shelf life.
6. cause its been raining again
7. keeps em fresh
8. to keep them from drying out and to keep them fresh and to wash the air polluation off them.
9. To avoid dehydration by evaporation.
10. So u dont get all the icky germs from everyones hands touching them. and they look better wen sprinkled with water
11. They are sprayed with water because if are not sprayed, they will dry up. The plants don't really have any other way to obtain water so the are regularly sprayed with water so they stay plump and fresh.
12. to keep fresh and to keep away bugs
13. 1 reason is so that they look fresh to customers, at some stores they even have thunderstorm sound effects. another reason may be because water moves from where it is more concentrated to where it is less concentrated. So if there is no water outside the plant the water inside will diffuse out an evaporate leading to a wilted looked vegetable. If water if sprayed on the outside of the leaves water will be less prone to move from the cells of the plant to the outside environment
14. referring to tha actual subject you've been studying (tonicity of solutions), this is because the cells of the plants have a higher water concentration than their outside environment (the air). since there are more free water molecules inside the cell compared to outside the cell, water will tend to diffuse out of the cell by means of osmosis. if you surround the vegetables in water, it will allow the cells to retain water and thus remain plumped up. (that's your main answer) further info: this concept is called "turgor pressure," and is used in conjunction with plant cells (which contain central vacuoles filled with water). if these vacuoles are empty, you won't have very firm cells. thus, you celery will be flimsy, your tomatoes wrinkled and dried out, your spinach leaves wilted. doesn't sound too appealing does it?
15. Fresh vegetables are sprinkled with water to keep them from getting soft and limp. If there is less water in the cell's environment than inside of the cell, water will diffuse via the plasma membrane to the cell's environment. This causes the cell to plasmolycize and wilt.