I avoid bruised fruit like the plague, being careful to check first when I buy it. Having said that, we grow veggies and we certainly use any fruit we buy. I'm a smoothie fanatic so it's not problem to use bruised fruit.

If it's a banana, I'll not worry too much about the bruises and make banana bread or muffins. If it's an apple, peach, pear, mango, etc., the bruised part has a mushy texture so I'll cut around it and make fruit salad. Grapes, if they're not too beat up I'll eat it. Otherwise, toss. So it depends on the fruit, the condition or even my mood at the time.

"If your bruised fruit has so much fungal activity that you can see or smell it, don't eat it."

Didn't we already cover the subject of moldy or old food not making you sick on this site? Only contaminated food (think e.coli or salmonella) makes you sick or gives you food poisoning. Spoiled food may be less appetizing or possibly less nutritious, but it won't make you sick.

Why would a bruise compromise its nutrition? I wouldn't expect dropping an apple or smooshing a banana a little bit to change its nutritional content.

Generally speaking, I don't mind a small/very new bruise, might eat around a medium one, but sometimes something's just too mushy and gross to be palatable.

Seriously people are so freaking paranoid about food. Do you think before grocery stores and waxed, perfect, genetically modified fruit, every piece of fruit we ate was perfect?

News flash - not only is fruit straight off the tree/vine/plant not perfect, sometimes people even eat fruit that has been nibbled on by birds or bugs.

I'm so sick of the "perfectionist" attitude towards food that Americans seem to have. Naturally grown real food is NOT perfect. Eating a bruised apple is NOT going to kill anyone. Trimming a soft spot off of a peach is not going to contaminate the rest of the peach.

Good god. Real food isn't wrapped in plastic in a Styrofoam tray, waxed into shiny perfection, or vacuum sealed in frozen stasis.

Are they also less healthy due to the sugar breaking down?? I heard that somewhere but don't remember if it was a reliable source!

@mh330: Not all food molds are okay to eat.

"sure, they may be safe, but are they as good for you?" Let's suppose that somehow a bruised fruit has less nutritional value than an unblemished fruit (which I highly doubt). How would that justify wasting what value it has?

I cut around mold and very mushy bruises and eat the rest. Except for very bruised/ripe bananas...I like my 'nanas slightly green. Brown bananas are for bread. ;)

Well, for some of us it's not about health, it's about texture. Having grown my own food and even studying agroforestry, it's clear that each fruit is to be treasured. We cannot take food for granted. But there's nothing wrong with having standards either. Will I save all bruised fruit to bake or blend? Yes. Will I serve mushy bruised grilled peaches to my family? No.

I think there's some middle ground between serving mushy bruised grilled peaches and eating only perfectly unblemished food. My husband will get to the bottom of a bag of apples to find a wrinkly one that's on its way out, but I'll always ask him to set it aside on the counter for me to use up rather than tossing it, because while it's not most people's first choice to eat out of hand, I can throw it in a dutch baby for breakfast or roast, chopped, alongside carrots and onions for a side dish with dinner. Maybe instead of grilling mushy or bruised fruit anyhow, it could be poached or simmered into a fruit sauce or butter to be drizzled onto pound cake, ice cream, or even toast? And just like that, it'd save money and prevent waste of something still edible.

@Emmi, smoothies are a great idea for blemished fruit! Missed your first comment somehow :-)

I interned with the nutrition department at a prestigious hospital, and we told everyone who was immuno-compromised (cancer, post transplant, etc.) to avoid bruised fruit.

@meleyna did you have reasons to give those patients if they asked why they should avoid said fruit? I'm just curious.

@RachH yes I am a smoothie fanatic, LOL. Although I'm all for new ideas. Sometimes when I rush at the market I end up with more bruised fruit than I thought.

Also curious @meleyna why patients are told to avoid bruised fruit. I wouldn't be surprised if there were in fact some health issues. Albeit minor ones, brown or bruised fruit could be infested with (mostly harmless) bugs or bacteria and some immunocompromised simply cannot take that risk. Just guessing.

If it's just bruised I eat it. If there's mold, I usually cut out the moldy part and a bit more around it and I would still eat the rest. Unless if the whole thing really smells moldy, but it's usually not the case. I've never gotten sick from doing this either.

My local place always has $1 bags of produce picked out from the regular sections. I mean, who hasn't cut a black spot off a potato? My favorites are apples, I get 3-4lb in a bag and often a nice selection. A quick wash and triage and I have a fruit bowl.

It's been mentioned by a few people, but I'll say it again: I don't enjoy the texture of the bruised portion, so I bake, blend, or otherwise use it in another medium. But it doesn't get tossed unless it's moldy or truly gone bad.

Is bruised fruit 'safe to eat'? Oh my god. I have to go away from this site for a while, until the urge to punch an American subsides. Are you really that ignorant, so over privileged and spoiled, so out of touch with the reality of the world's food problems that this is a question people wonder about?

Obviously there is a difference between bruised and mouldy. If there's a welt on my Granny Smith should I throw it away..? Oh. My. God.

When I was a kid, I was super picky about never wanting to eat the bruises, and dutifully either cut them totally out or refused to eat the fruit. Then I realized that is totally neurotic and that I was being a huge baby, and now just eat it anyway. Admittedly, it was always about texture (mushy stuff was never a favorite), but yeah, I can't imagine anyone over 10 years old without OCD really caring that much about fruit bruises.

I'm not sure if this is true for all fruits but this is the case for bananas- under-ripe ones have a lower GI value.

Actually, over-ripe bananas are healthier. They have 8xs the cancer fighting properties as the firm, yellow ones I prefer to eat. Those brown spots are actually a good thing. This is not the case with diabetics, as the higher sugar content can be a problem. I throw my spotted (not moldy) bananas in my morning smoothie!
http://www.hoaxorfact.com/Health/full-ripe-banana-with-dark-patches-combats-abnormal-cells-and-cancer.html