Am I the only one who thinks that the freshness of supermarket food has taken a dramatic decline the past few months?

On July 3, I picked up some mint for a special salad I was making for the picnic the next day. The next morning at 9 a.m., I minced some of the leaves and put them in a plastic bag, to sprinkle on top of the salad. At noon, I was assembling the salad when I saw that half the mint in the plastic bag had turned black. Turned black? Just in a few hours?

I stopped to think of all the times recently that some item I had picked up at one grocery store or another was spoiled when I went to use it a couple days later. Is something going wrong with our just-in-time supply chain for the food system?

I have already stopped buying any fruits like peaches or nectarines out of season. The fruit starts out hard as a rock, but it rots before it ever ripens. My suspicion is that varieties suited to shipping long distances only look like real fruit — they are actually a sort of manufactured fruit substitute that tantalizes you into thinking you will soon taste real food.

But now it seems to be happening with everything. I don’t have any cucumbers yet, but the two I picked up for a salad were flabby two days later, when I would normally expect them to stay crisp for a week.

My sister said that she has stopped buying any produce on sale — you can barely get it home before it falls apart.

I asked a friend who works for a grocery association if they had received complaints, but they rarely hear directly from consumers. She suspected that rising fuel prices could play a role.

Could it be that the truckers are cutting back on refrigeration to save money on fuel?

I have started asking everyone I run into if they have noticed the dramatic decline in the freshness of our food, and more than one has said, “I thought it was just me!”

Are you seeing the same thing?

Those farm markets that specialize in locally grown produce are looking like a better and better option every day.