How long will a vegetable live for after being harvested?

Question

I understand this might depend on the types of vegetables, but is there an average or studied specifics? Does it die immediately? Is there a way to precisely diagnose death in plants? If so, what are the conditions for it?

Answer 1

It sounds harsh, but a harvested fruit or vegetable, severed from the processes that support it, is basically dead at that point; it just doesn't know it yet. The same is true for the flowers you cut from outside and place in a vase. Prediction of shelf life is really difficult, because the fruit or vegetable will continue to ripen after it is harvested basically up to the point it begins to deteriorate and ultimately rot. The shelf life of produce depends of a multitude of factors: ripeness at picking, storage temperature and humidity, type of fruit or vegetable, etc. which makes such timeline predictions extremely difficult outside of a controlled experiment. Most produce on grocery store shelves is actually picked well before it is ripe so it will reach the "peak of freshness" upon arrival at your local store. How far it had to travel usually determines how prematurely it is harvested. Unfortunately, this process decreases time "on the vine" and results in lower nutritional value, even though it still looks perfect, because many phytonutrients are not moved into the fruit by the plant until very late in the development process. And this, too, can affect shelf life.