Talk:Prune

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Can anyone post a photo of a prune? Names of fruits and vegetables are difficult or impossible to understand for non-native speakers based only on description. Descriptions can be very confusing, whereas a picture can lay away any doubt.

• I added a photo, it's not very good but it's better than nothing. -Merzperson

Prunes vs. plums

The article claims that a prune is not the same as a dried plum. Are we sure about this? This contradicts, for instance, Merriam-Webster (m-w.com). but i think this is not true. is this right

Well I usually consider dried plum to be the chinese dried plum which is much drier to the form that is often refered to as a prune. However, I supose dried plum would be a larger catagory and also include prunes. I left a link to Aji ichiban which sells various flavours of chinese dried plums. The link below is ginsing.

http://ajiichiban-usa.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=A&Product_Code=DF4111-L01A

Prunes are a fruit that grows on prune trees just as any fruit does. Prunes are much smaller than plums and are oval shaped. They are similar in color to some dark plums, such as Santa Rosa plums, though they appear lighter in color due to a powdery coating.

I grew up in San Jose CA., the, then, prune capitol of the world. Before the prune orchards were cut down for houseing tracts they were quite common. We had prune trees in our front yard left over from when the area was an orchard. My parents canned them fresh just as they did other fresh fruit. There were also local sites that processed prunes (mostly drying them, but some were canned to make "stewed prunes." Many were shiped to Scandinavia where they were popular, not humorous.

Are they related boltanically? Of course. But in common usage they are different just like peaches and apricots. You don't dry a peach and get a dried apricot. If you want a dried prune, you dry a prune.

For those who didn't know, a dried prune could easily be thought to be a dried plum just like a dried apricot might be thought to be the dried form or a peach. The confusion comes from the fact that one rarely see fresh prunes, or dried plums in stores. So, if one has never seen a fresh prune or a dried plum, one guesses (incorrectly) that this thing called, formerly, a dried prune and now called a dried plum, did, in fact, come from a plum tree.

Addtionally, for PR reasons the dried prune industry decided they could increase sales if they call dried prunes, dried plums. (In the past, dried prunes were sold as "Dried Prunes" both on the label and in the ingrediant list) They had to get a special exemption to do this. So, now the bag says "Dried Plums," but under ingrediants, it will say, "dried prunes." They don't mean a plum that was dried and is now a dried prune. They mean a prune that was dried and is now a dried prune (but labeld on the bag as "Dried PLums").

Furthermore, perhaps, people incorrectly borrow from the logic of grapes and raisins. Afterall, there are no fresh raisins or dried grapes, only grapes and raisins. That logic fails them here.

To complicate things, a prune may botancially be a type of plum. But in practical usage, a dried prune comes from a prune tree that had fresh prunes on it, and is thought of by people with fruit trees as a prune tree, not a plum tree. If you dry a plum, as we know it, you will not get a prune anymore than you will get a dried apricot by drying a peach.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.42.28 (talk) 21:51, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Prunes are indeed dried plums. I’m not sure where an apricot would get confused with a peach as they are indeed different fruits. You can get a fresh apricot or a dried one. You can not get a fresh “prune” as the term refers to any type of dehydrated plum. Rinne77 (talk) 15:16, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

It probably wasn't worth responding! The writer was either trolling or endowed with a unique misconception. I'm surprised they didn't go on to claim that dried raisins come from fresh raisins that are botanically distuinct from grapes.

Interestingly, French Wikipedia specifies that prunes are from a specific cultivar of plums (for which the French word is prunes, whereas they use pruneaux for the dried ones), while our article says it's the dried version of any cultivar. Still, maybe in practice a particular cultivar is used and it may be different from the cultivars sold fresh, possibly because each type has characteristics suitable to its respective purposes. But, like damson plums and mirabelle plums, they're still all members of the species we call plums. Largoplazo (talk) 16:13, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

He wasn't trolling. His peach/apricot analogy was not the best example, though. But it is absolutely true that dried prunes do not come from the same varieties of plums that are sold fresh. The fruit that dried prunes are dried from ARE called prunes, and the trees they grow on are prune trees. They technically ARE plums, yea: but nobody calls them plums, neither plum trees. They're prune trees and prunes. (I am from the same place that the IP is from, and it did used to be the prune capital of the world - there are still a few fragments and remnants of orchards scattered around, some of the trees being prune trees). Here's a (perhaps) better analogous example: the difference between (non-prune) 'plums' and 'prunes' is akin to the difference between field corn or Indian corn and sweet corn. All are corn, yet they are not the same. Firejuggler86 (talk) 08:09, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Send to BJAODN?

Camp Song: The Prune Song

Ohhhhh...No matter how young a prune may be, he's always getting wrinkles. A baby prune is like his dad, but he's not wrinkled quite so bad. We have wrinkles on our face, A prune has wrinkles every place. Ohhhh...No matter how young a prune may be, he's always getting wrinkles.

(Hand motions -- swing arms during the song. Point to your face at "we have wrinkles every place". Use hands to squish your face into the shape of a prune and in a high pitch squeal sing "prunes have wrinkles every place".

-Submitted by Jay Fink

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prune"

This was on the page, and seems to be silly enough to be sent to Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense.

laxative

Why do prunes have laxative qualities? Chris 04:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

this makes no sense to me for several reasons? 1. How can a plumb dried to become a prune be juiced? Doesn't drying take away all juices from the fruit? 2. How can a prune ever be "fresh" when it is a dried plumb? Things that are dried aren't really fresh. 3. How can a dried plumb (prune) ever reach the market before a fresh plumb, when chronologically, a fresh plumb precedes the prune? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.232.21.226 (talk • contribs) January 17, 2007.

I believe that prune juice is really plum juice, but people don't tend think of prunes as dried plums. People have a strong association with prunes and their laxative properties, so it gets marketed as prune juice rather than plum juice. But you could juice a prune, they aren't completely dry. Freshness is relative - a prune isn't a fresh plum, but some prunes are fresher than others. It would be good if this article mentioned how a prune can get to the market sooner than a plum. Perhaps the plums that are used for prunes are a different type than those that are eaten fresh, and get to the market faster.--RLent (talk) 16:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

If you look at the table liating the contents of a 100g sample of peunes you would see it is 31% water. Just because they remove SOME water doesn't mean they remove it all. VoidHalo (talk) 00:40, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

For clarification, there are fresh "prunes" that are NOT dried WHATSOEVER, and are an oval less-sweet plum. These are just a different species of plum. I'll clarify the article.

if you freeze dry something u can add water to it and than u have a juice. almost all orange juice in stores is made from dry orange powder, and water is added as the original water content has been removed. Markthemac (talk) 01:28, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

and most dried products are fresher (less polluted) than their undried cousins ;) as it contains less fungi spores dried. Markthemac (talk) 01:30, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• I would really like more info to be put up on the dangers and benefits of using them as laxatives, that might be a major reason people come to the page. Dangers as in consuming many can lead to some painful problems in the gut.Teplitskya1 (talk) 02:58, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Production a bit country specific

The section on production is very US specific, the section should be moved out to a new section (maybe Production in the USA?) -TempestSA —Preceding undated comment was added at 05:10, 18 September 2008 (UTC).

John Stewart & Steven Colbert

I was watching this [1] and wondered if their reference should be taken into the popular culture references. I'm not exactly how tho (i had to look up prunes in order to understand their act, since English is not my native language. ;-> ). It's just a thought anyway. burt777 - 2008-11-17 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Burt777 (talk • contribs) 18:15, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Fresh prunes is not international usage?

In the UK, I've only ever known 'prune' to refer to the dried fruit; the fresh version would be called a plum no matter what the shape. So maybe use of 'prune' to mean a fresh fruit is country-specific? 94.194.66.92 (talk) 05:55, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Pop Culture Section

I have taken the liberty of removing several references in the pop culture section, as I do not believe that they themselves are noteworthy. They seem to me to be simply off-hand references to prunes in a single episode, and don't really have any bearing on the series as a whole (and are effectively just one-off jokes).

However, another editor continues to remove the whole section, without discussion and with a rationale in the edit summary that doesn't discuss all elements within the section. I believe that the reference to Dr Pepper, is notable, especially as it is referenced to a Snopes article. I am quite happy to enter into discussion about the notability of such a reference, but would prefer if editors could do it on the talk page rather than simply deleting whole sections. Fenix down (talk) 13:40, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Being a new Editor myself I would say that not everyone will go on the talk page to discuss every change, some may not even know of the talk page, but maybe an administrator or someone else can make the changes more permanent. I think these notable references you mentioned sound interesting and are worth keeping, even as links. Teplitskya1 (talk) 02:53, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Foreign language names

These may possibly (or possibly not) be appropriate for a later subsection of the English language article, but not in the introduction. Hence I moved the following sentence here, to be used elsewhere, if appropriate.

"It is called 'Alu-bukhara' in Iran, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. "

Elroch (talk) 09:05, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

prunes make me poop — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.166.218.67 (talk) 16:24, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Link to Laxative page? As well the prune benifits section starts talking about prune juice, should that not be in its own section?

The Laxative page has a link to the prune page but not vice versa. How does one change this?

• I changed it!Teplitskya1 (talk) 05:24, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

As well "Prune juice is made by softening prunes through steaming and then putting them through a pulper to create a watery puree." needs its own section and should not be in the benefits section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teplitskya1 (talk • contribs) 05:06, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

• If I do not add a new section maybe someone else should, it should say PRUNE JUICE and have that one sentence in here, I cut it out and its here, but not in the main article anymore... speaking of prune juice, other parts of the article talk about it, and so you should move those too... Teplitskya1 (talk) 05:24, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Disadvantages

I added a citation for the presence of acrylamide in prunes, but the wording of the section seems to be deceptive. The source I added refers to the amount of the chemical in prunes as "surprising high" due to the temperatures involved being lower than normally required for its formation. It is also noted that the amount is higher in pears and prunes than in other dried fruits. However, the use of "high dose" in this article seems to imply the amount is considered high for food or human consumption in general. I don't know if this is the case or not, but it isn't supported by the source I found, and may need to be clarified or backed up by additional citations. kmarple1 (talk) 17:16, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I went ahead and added the Wikipedia information regarding acrylamides and cancer. Please do not remove this information as it is critical for people reading this article to make an informed judgment regarding the relative risk. Again, this is excerpted from and a reference to a WELL RESEARCHED WIKIPEDIA ENTRY. N0w8st8s (talk) 15:00, 7 March 2013 (UTC)n0w8st8s

Vandalization

In the section DISADVANTAGES, I added factual, IMPORTANT and sourced material to an otherwise UNSOURCED statement regarding the presence of potential carcinogens. Someone has REVERTED my entry in favor of keeping the following SUSPICIOUSLY UNSOURCED statement: Dried prunes have been found to contain high doses of a chemical called acrylamide which is a known neurotoxin and a carcinogen.[4] Acrylamide does not occur naturally in foods but is formed during the cooking process at temperatures > 100 degC. Although, the common drying mechanism of prunes does not involve high temperatures, formation of high amount of acrylamide has been reported in dried prunes as well as pears. <---No sources given! Found by WHOM??? When? Where? I included my sources which refute this idle speculation, but someone has chosen to VANDALIZE my entry rather than flagging it for additional backup (if that is needed) per Wikipedia requirements. Whoever did this needs to undo their revert of my entry, and make a comment here to avoid putting this article up for lockdown from his edits. Edit wars are not the intent of Wikipedia, and this senseless reverting without explanation or discussion must stop. — Preceding unsigned comment added by N0w8st8s (talk • contribs) 20:51, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

The edit in question seems to be this one:

• 17:50, March 16, 2013‎ Th4n3r (talk | contribs)‎ m . . (4,830 bytes) (-358)‎ . . (wikipedia is not a source) (undo)

while I agree that it could have been handled without reverting your edit, they have a point. It would be better to either use sources from the article directly or direct readers to the article instead of citing it as a source. kmarple1 (talk) 17:47, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Merge with prunus domestica?

What, if any, is the difference between prune and prunus domestica? Are there any prominent examples of prune that is not of the species prunus domestica? Can these articles be merged? Isheden (talk) 09:32, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

one is dried. The other is meant for drying. That is, prunus domesticated is the fruit that when dried will become a prune.

Hence they are not the same thing. A dried prune is prunus domesticated after it has been processed.

It's like saying grapes and raisins are the same thing. Raisins come from grapes. But they are not grapes. They are distinctly different in that they have been processed. As prunes are. VoidHalo (talk) 00:46, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Jerkum

I've changed the info in the brief mention of the alcoholic drink jerkum- specifically, to change "Cornwall" to "the Cotswolds"; this is what the information in the Plum Jerkum article states. Aside from making this article agree with the main article, I have no other knowledge/references on the subject; if anyone has strong opinions on the matter (as I'm sure is the case with obscure regional cuisine), feel free to dive in and change it again- but only if you're willing to change it in both places, so that they agree. 82.22.27.88 (talk) 10:34, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Sugar plums

This article states that prunes are used to make sugar plums but the article on sugar plums clearly states the opposite. (This article doesn't have a reference for that statement) Dr.khatmando (talk) 13:05, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Confess I had missed this error, but apparently it has sat in the article for years. It's both amusing and embarrassing for Wikipedia in this article which calls us out for falling into the 'assumption trap'! Thanks. Fixing the article with a ref for which there are many choices dispelling the myth. --Zefr (talk) 14:35, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Zefr No worries. Thank you following up. They're decent articles and you've made them just that little bit better. Dr.khatmando (talk) 23:16, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Table?

The word "table" exists three times in the article, seemingly as a superfluous punctuation of sentences. What's with that? Pickles8 (talk) 04:16, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

There's only one table in the article - the table of nutrients - and each sentence directing the reader to the "table" points out a nutrition fact. If you feel there's a better way to identify nutrition facts or highlight nutrients, WP:FIXIT. Zefr (talk) 04:35, 14 January 2023 (UTC)