Keep fruit and vegetables in daylight to boost nutrients.
Many employers offer their employees fresh fruit as a free treat. Knowing that fresh fruit is good for your health and gives you energy. What probably many people are not familiar with is that the nutrient levels could vary depending on how the fruit basket has been treated.
Even after being picked the biological clock of fruits and vegetables continue to tick. This means they are still sensitive to the time of day. Researchers found, if you allow them to continue on a day-night cycle you will keep them in a more natural and healthy state while permanent darkness or light may affect their nutrient content for the worse. Like plants, food crops use their 24-hour clock to change their physical state throughout the day, for example by altering levels of chemicals which help them ward off pests. These chemical balances can have an important impact on taste and nutritional value and some are even known to have anti-cancer properties. Researchers claimed that the findings showed that the way we store fruit and vegetables, and even the time of day that we eat it, could profoundly alter how healthy it is for up to a week after it is harvested.
Janet Braam, professor i biokemi och cellbiologi på Rice University i Houston, Texas, USA, explained: “Vegetables and fruits, even after harvest, can respond to light signals and consequently change their biology in ways that may affect health value and insect resistance. Perhaps we should be storing our vegetables and fruits under light-dark cycles and timing when to cook and eat them to enhance their health value.”
While keeping this in mind, probably everyone would like to see the fruit and vegetable in sunlight when doing their grocery shopping. Not only that it looks nice and fresh, but also knowing that the fruits and vegetables are nutrient boosted.
