My wife & I went grocery shopping this weekend, and, in the produce section, I saw something I’d seen a million times before but never thought about: why are bulk oranges sold in red mesh sacks? (Talk about a MUNDANE mystery!)

It’s always safe to assume that, if any part of a food’s packaging doesn’t seem like it serves a practical purpose, then it’s more than likely some sort of marketing tactic. And that’s exactly what’s going on with the classic red mesh bag of oranges seen in supermarket produce sections. Whenever oranges aren’t being sold loose in a crate, they almost always come in red mesh bags. It may seem like plain old packaging, but it’s specially designed to make you want to buy those oranges.

The color orange “pops” when you pair it with the color red, more than it would with yellow, green, blue, or purple. So, when you see a bunch of oranges contained within a red net pattern, your brain actually sees them as more “orange” than they otherwise would on their own (and, thus, they must be fresher & better quality). The same rationale is used for bagging other fruits like grapefruits or tangerines, which are also orange in color. Red makes them pop!

Red doesn’t work for all fruits, though. Green is actually more commonly used for bagging lemons, so that the yellow rinds stand out. If lemons were sold in the same red bags as other citrus, the red and yellow hues together would actually make the fruits appear orange. Lemons can also come in yellow mesh bags, and the bags for limes are usually green to match their color.

So, the next time you visit the grocery store, see if you can spot all the ways the store is set up to influence your buying decisions. The items at eye-level will likely be more expensive than those on the shelves above and below them, and the products near the register will likely be cheaper and more appealing as impulse buys. But the oranges…they’ll always be a good buy!

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved, send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

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I recently visited my doctor & ended up with a prescription. After looking at the bottle, I wondered what that “Rx” means. Why does Rx mean “prescription”, when there’s neither an R or an X in the word prescription?

The pharmacy practice, or the preparation & dispensation of drugs, has been around for thousands of years. The world’s first recorded prescriptions were etched on a Mesopotamian clay tablet around 2100 B.C., while the first drugstores came about in the ancient city of Baghdad in the 8th century A.D. America’s earliest drugstores sprung up in the 17th century, in major cities like Boston & New York. But none of these established Rx as the symbol for prescription. So, where did it come from?

The Rx symbol is actually derived from the Latin word “recipere,” which means “to take” (which makes sense, given that you take or ingest medication). Now, there are some alternative theories, like the belief that Rx evolved from the Eye of Horus, an ancient Egyptian symbol associated with healing powers, or even the Jupiter symbol, which looks like an embellished version of the number 4. But, while the Rx can be stylistically written so that it looks similar to the Eye of Horus or Jupiter symbol, they’re clearly more artsy retrofitting than factual.

Prior to the 1950s, the majority of prescription medications in America were compounded by pharmacists, meaning that each medication was custom-made from raw ingredients, using a mortar & pestle, to suit each individual patient’s needs. But, in the mid-20th century, pharmacists began filling most prescriptions with mass-produced products produced by wholesale drug manufacturers. Still, nowadays the mortar & pestle remain a pharmacy industry symbol, most of the time showing up on drugstore signs right alongside the letters Rx (which, you know now what that means).

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

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