Fuck Grapefruit
Fuck Grapefruit
[An X-Y scatter plot of fruit where both axes have arrows in both ends. At the end of each arrow is a label.] [The X-axis from left to right:] Difficult Easy [The Y-axis from top to bottom:] Tasty Untasty
[The fruit names are listed here below from top to bottom according to the how tasty the fruit is, not necessarily in the same order that the names are written if one fruit is tall/large and the other low:] Peaches Seeded grapes Strawberries Seedless grapes Pineapples Blueberries Cherries Pears Green apples Plums Watermelons Red apples Bananas Pomegranates Oranges Tomatoes Grapefruit Lemons
Later, in 1811: Best-Tasting Colors , Randall once again rates food taste in general, but this time based on the color of the food. So not just fruit and nothing about how easy it is to eat. There are, however, several of the fruits from this chart included, but not grapefruit. Instead, purple grapes is rated as the worst fruit on the chart with less than 1.5 on a scale from 1-9. This is interesting, as he did not include those in this chart, but has rated green/white grapes very high in tastiness. It seems like he has altered his taste over the nine years between releases, since lemon, which was the worst taste on this chart, has moved up to 3/9 while Oranges have moved further down to a 2/9. Watermelon is also included (both for pink and green) with 6/9 making it seem better than in this chart. Green apples has also moved almost to the top with nearly 8/9 vs. only just above 50% here. Finally, there is cherry (as good as the apple) and strawberry (8.5/9), which fits here for strawberry, but it seems like cherries has moved up a notch. Three fruits not included here are Lime (as lemon), and red and blue raspberries (5.5/9). But it turns out that the worst taste for Randall is not grape, but licorice at 1/9, with both popcorn and coffee worse than grape at about 1.5/9 . The best is cotton candy, which beats strawberry by a nose.

This comic consists of a chart where Randall has plotted fruits according to two criteria: ease/difficulty to eat on the horizontal axis and tastiness on the vertical axis. The Y-axis goes from "tasty" at the top to "untasty" at the bottom. The X-axis goes from "easy" on the right to "difficult" on the left.
For instance, pineapples are deemed fairly tasty but very difficult to eat, whereas (seeded) grapes are very tasty and somewhat easy, and logically seedless grapes are roughly equally tasty but easier to eat.
Obviously, being easy to eat is preferable to being difficult, and being tasty is preferable to being untasty, so the "best" fruits (regarding these two aspects only) are in the top-right corner, and the worst in the bottom-left; additionally, in the top-left corner are the "difficult-but-worthy" fruits, and in the bottom-right one, the "not-very-tasty-but-at-least-they're-easy-to-eat" ones.
The individual ratings of each fruit are subjective -- very obviously in the case of tastiness, and more subtly for difficulty. Randall does not explain his criteria for ranking the difficulty of each fruit, and it is likely based on only personal experiences. Someone who has grown up in an area where pineapples are plentiful is likely to be more adept at skillfully preparing them. The discrepancies between how Randall has rated certain fruits and how others believe they should have been rated caused a surprising level of controversy . Nine years later, a comic about the best tasting foods 1811: Best-Tasting Colors was released, which also generated a lot of discussion. That comic indicated that Randall had changed his taste over the years. Later, Randall suggests using a 1949: Fruit Collider to create a pineapple with apple skin, thus combining tastiness with ease to eat.
According to the chart, Grapefruit is the third hardest fruit to eat, as well as the second least tasty fruit (from the ones listed at least). Eating one of them is like spending too much of one's time and energy without much reward. Hence Randall's quip in the title: "Fuck grapefruit."
In the title text, Randall mentions coconuts . Randall mentions that he would have to put them so far down to the left on the chart (not far down, just far down towards the left), that they would not fit in this chart. He thus states that it is so much more difficult to eat (especially to open) coconuts than the usual mainstream fruits such as the ones plotted here. If he did include coconuts in the chart, the rest of the fruits would all be pushed to the right side of the chart. He does not say that he does not like to eat the fruit. (Although it has " nut " in its name, the coconut is actually a stone fruit and thus belongs on a chart of fruit.) Having spent half an hour trying (in vain?) to open a coconut, Randall also only has one thing to say about them: "Fuck coconuts." However, harvesting just the "milk" is pretty easy, as you can poke a sturdy stick or metal pole into one of three spots located on the coconut. These spots are lighter and slightly indented from the rest of the coconut and form a triangle shape.
A similar problem is later displayed in a small scatter plot of the capabilities vs cuteness of Mars Rovers in 2433: Mars Rovers . The plot has 3 types of rovers (5 rovers, but two times two are very similar). But far outside the plot to the right is a very cute rover, that did not fit inside the actual plots axis. Of course in this case it actually possible to draw them all, and the X-axis could have been drawn longer to include the last rover! But it is made like this to make a point, that is similar to the one made in the title text of this comic.
In 1701: Speed and Danger , another scatter plot shows exactly what happens when one point is inserted into such a plot if it is far removed from all the other points, in this case even on both axes.
Note that Randall uses similar diagrams in both 1242: Scary Names , 1501: Mysteries and 2466: In Your Classroom , which also contain different items. The first two also have an extra point, and the last two extra points mentioned in the title text. Only the first and the lasts comics points are also off the chart, whereas for the second the description of the point is too long to fit on the chart. Extra info outside the chart is also used in the title text of 1785: Wifi , but this is a line graph.
The table below lists approximate coordinates for each fruit using a scale of -100% (untasty/difficult) to 100% (tasty/easy). The coordinates are based on the included fruits, any new items added outside the current range (e.g. Coconuts) would cause the scales to be reassigned, and thus change the coordinate values of existing items.
The coordinates have been found by measuring each fruit from the center of the drawing (not the center of mass, but center from left to right/top to bottom) to the two axes. The axes are hand drawn, which is clearly visible. The numbers have been obtained by measuring to the nearest point of each axis, not taking into account that the axes are not perfect straight perpendicular lines.
[An X-Y scatter plot of fruit where both axes have arrows in both ends. At the end of each arrow is a label.] [The X-axis from left to right:] Difficult Easy [The Y-axis from top to bottom:] Tasty Untasty
[The fruit names are listed here below from top to bottom according to the how tasty the fruit is, not necessarily in the same order that the names are written if one fruit is tall/large and the other low:] Peaches Seeded grapes Strawberries Seedless grapes Pineapples Blueberries Cherries Pears Green apples Plums Watermelons Red apples Bananas Pomegranates Oranges Tomatoes Grapefruit Lemons
Later, in 1811: Best-Tasting Colors , Randall once again rates food taste in general, but this time based on the color of the food. So not just fruit and nothing about how easy it is to eat. There are, however, several of the fruits from this chart included, but not grapefruit. Instead, purple grapes is rated as the worst fruit on the chart with less than 1.5 on a scale from 1-9. This is interesting, as he did not include those in this chart, but has rated green/white grapes very high in tastiness. It seems like he has altered his taste over the nine years between releases, since lemon, which was the worst taste on this chart, has moved up to 3/9 while Oranges have moved further down to a 2/9. Watermelon is also included (both for pink and green) with 6/9 making it seem better than in this chart. Green apples has also moved almost to the top with nearly 8/9 vs. only just above 50% here. Finally, there is cherry (as good as the apple) and strawberry (8.5/9), which fits here for strawberry, but it seems like cherries has moved up a notch. Three fruits not included here are Lime (as lemon), and red and blue raspberries (5.5/9). But it turns out that the worst taste for Randall is not grape, but licorice at 1/9, with both popcorn and coffee worse than grape at about 1.5/9 . The best is cotton candy, which beats strawberry by a nose.
