With digital software like Photoshop being used ever so often to alter things so perfectly, it’s hard to tell what’s real anymore. Take these photos of the so-called ‘rainbow grapes’ that have been doing the rounds online for about a month. They’re about the coolest-looking fruit I’ve ever seen, but are they real?
Well, yes and no. Rainbow grapes do exist, but they are just regular grapes photographed in a ripening stage known as Veraison, or the ‘onset of ripening’. “When grapes go into the final stage of ripening, the young immature grapes have a very dark, opaque green color and a very hard texture, like little rocks,” said Larry Stone, master sommelier and restaurateur. “And then when they go through veraison, the skin goes through coloration. If they’re white grapes, they go from a dark green to a kind of yellowish green color, and they get more and more transparent. A red grape will go from a green color to a red color.” The shade of red depends on the variety of grape.”
Fake rainbow grapes
And at the end, once they’re all ripe, all grapes of a particular variety display the same final color. That’s why you can’t buy or eat Rainbow Grapes, but you could certainly witness their beautiful transformation.
Fake rainbow grapes
However, that doesn’t seem to be stopping people from trying to actually sell rainbow grape seeds for a profit. The photos circulating online don’t help things much either, especially when they come with descriptions like ‘unique grape variety’ or ‘hybrid grapes’. An to make things even worse, most of these unscupulous vendors use digitally-altered images of rainbow grapes, like the ones originally posted on Worth1000.com, as part of a Photoshop contest.
Fake rainbow grapes
Real rainbow grapes
Real rainbow grapes
Sources: Snopes, Hoax or Fact
