Another approach is to use an in-memory open (Perl 5.8.0+) thus enabling $.:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings; use strict;

open (my $loop_fh, '<', \"Apples\nOranges\nBannanas\nKiwis")
    or die "unable to open: $!";

while (<$loop_fh>) {
  chomp;
  print "item $. is $_\n";
}
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