Health News Archive

Eat Fresh Fruits and Vegetables

Most fruits and vegetables begin to lose vitamins soon after they are harvested.

The reason is that the fruit or vegetable is cut off from the nutrient source of the tree or plant that grew it.

Nearly half the vitamins may be lost within a few days unless the fresh produce is cooled or preserved.

Within 1 to 2 weeks, even refrigerated fruits and vegetable may lose half of their vitamins.

When you cook foods or prepare them for canning the heating process during usually destroys from 1/3 to 1/2 of vitamins A and C, thiamin, and riboflavin.

Once canned, additional losses of these sensitive vitamins are between 5 to 20 percent each year depending on storage conditions. So canned food really does have an expiring shelf life.

The amounts of other vitamins, however, are only slightly lower in canned foods compared with fresh food.

Vegetables handled properly and cooked or canned promptly after harvest may be more nutritious than fresh fruits and vegetables kept for many days after harvest being bruised or bounced or kept in warm instead of cool storage.

Back 15.03.2006.