Aged to perfection

Just about every piece of health advice you read recommends lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. But if you really want to get the most nutritional bang for your buck, you might want to adjust your definition of “fresh.”

According to a study published a couple of months ago in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, some fruits and vegetables actually get better for you after they’ve been stored for awhile. Not long enough for them to spoil, of course, but the researchers found that when they stored produce items either at room temperature or in the refrigerator for several days, not only did the antioxidant capacity not go down (as anticipated), but some of the produce’s flavonoid content actually increased.

Flavonoids are compounds in fruits and vegetables that give them their color. They also have antioxidant properties. Which means that storing your fruits and vegetables for a few days before you eat them could be a simple way to boost your antioxidant intake — and, in turn, help ward off all the problems that come along with the free radical damage those antioxidants fight: conditions like cancer and heart disease and even things like skin wrinkling and other signs of aging.

I guess good things really do come to those who wait.

And if this research looks promising for “regular” fruits and vegetables, imagine how a few days’ storage could affect organic produce, which already has a nutritional leg-up on commercially grown varieties thanks to an absence of pesticides and herbicides.

But whatever type of fruits and vegetables you buy, this something you can do right away, and it that won’t cost you an extra cent — always a winning combination when it comes to health advice.

Sources:

“Fruit, veg antioxidant profile increases with time,” NutraIngredients.com (www.nutraingredients.com), 10/12/07

“Evolution of antioxidant capacity during storage of selected fruits and vegetables,” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 2007; 55(21):8,596-8,603