But there can be one small problem when eating a peach: The fine hair on peach skin can be irritating to some of us. But actually, that’s might be exactly the point of it.
Biologists have speculated that peaches have evolved those fuzzy hairs — called indumenta — to create a physical barrier that prevents flies and other pests from laying eggs in their flesh.
Is this true? In 2014, four researchers at the University of California at Berkeley carried out a lab experiment to test that idea. They presented populations of the spotted wing fly, an economic pest of fruit crops, with peaches that had three different fruit surfaces: peaches with natural fuzz; peaches from which the fuzz had been shaved off with a wet tissue and a razor; and peaches that had already been damaged by other insects.
Then, they counted the number of eggs laid on each substrate. They found that flies did not lay eggs in the fuzzy fruits. But they readily laid eggs in the peaches without fuzz and the peaches with insect damage. This suggests that peach fuzz puts up a real barrier to the damage that could be imposed by flies.
However, many commercial fruit producers understand that their customers prefer their peaches with less fuzz, and so they remove it during processing with high-pressure streams of water. But don’t worry!
The presence or absence of fuzz after it’s picked doesn’t affect the lifespan of your peaches, because the hair is there to help the fruit while it’s growing, not when it’s safely mature.
So, let’s enjoy our splendid peaches this season, with or without the fuzz.
