Watermelons can offer a nice explosion of flavor in your mouth, but they shouldn’t be spontaneously combusting.
Oddly enough, that’s exactly what some fans of the popular fruit are worried about following several consumer reports of foaming watermelons this summer.
Emily Durbin, a Florida resident, posted about one such ominous-looking fruit this week on a Facebook group “Mommy Needs A Recipe!”
Durbin shared a photo of a sizeable watermelon perched on her kitchen counter with white foam oozing out of it.
Earlier this month, Maine’s Bangor Daily News published a story about exploding watermelons, detailing another incident involving a watermelon that Maine resident Julie Raines purchased.
So, yes, foaming fruit is trending, but why? And should we be concerned? TODAY.com consulted several food safety experts to get to the root of the bizarre phenomenon. Here’s what we found out.
What causes watermelons to foam and explode?
Keith Schneider, Ph.D, professor in the Food Science and Human Nutrition Department at the University of Florida, tells TODAY.com this isn’t the first time he’s heard of foaming or exploding watermelons.
“This is probably due to the heat. The fruit, if slightly damaged, can begin fermenting. If enough fermentation occurs, which produces gas, enough internal pressure may build up for the watermelon to crack or pop,” Schneider says.
He explains that “excessive summer heat” can wreak havoc on the quality of some produce, calling it an “unexpected consequence of climate change.”
As part of the fermentation process, if certain microorganisms are introduced into the watermelon, they convert sugar into alcohol.
“It’s the same process that happens in beer and wine making. The offshoot of this process is CO2 gas. The thing that puts the bubbles in your beer,” Schneider says.
Eventually, an explosion can take place, especially “if the wound heals over and pressure is allowed to build up,” he explains.