E AT I N G
IN
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sn't modern Big Agriculture great?
With a quick trip to the corner grocery
store, we have every variety of fruit
and vegetable available to us, regardless of
what time of year it is. Fresh blueberries in
your morning oatmeal in December? Sure.
Fresh grape tomatoes in dinner's salad in the
dead of winter? No problem. But, unless you
are buying in-season produce, fresh is a bit of
misnomer. Buying fruits and vegetables while
they are in season ensures that you are getting
the best-tasting and most nutrient-dense foods
available. For optimum health and food
enjoyment, spend some time learning
about the harvesting seasons.
True Meaning of Fresh
Produce not in season makes quite the trek to your local
supermarket, taking anywhere from three days to several
weeks, traveling on average nearly 2,000 miles. To ensure
that they don’t spoil along the way, fruits and vegetables are
picked before they have reached full maturity, meaning they
have not only yet to reach their peak aroma and taste, but
nutritional content as well. Theoretically, they should ripen
during transportation, but this isn’t always the case. After
harvesting, exposure to air, temperature changes, and
artificial light all result in vitamin and mineral degradation
and the necessity for more preservatives. Numerous studies
have shown that produce picked at maturity and either
consumed immediately or flash frozen on-site have higher
levels of vital nutrients than what ends up in your grocery
store display. * In particular, levels of vitamin C and
antioxidants are especially sensitive to early harvesting.
Studies have shown that fresh vegetables can lose up to 51
percent of their vitamin C content within 48 hours of being
picked. * Even when stored in refrigerated environments,
vegetables can lose nearly half of their water-soluble