Good Nutrition is more than eating the right kinds of food.  A dietitian tells you what foods should be in a meal and your diet.  Good nutrition is how much nutritional value is in the fruits and vegetables you eat.  To understand how you get nutrition into your body you have to understand the process of how the nutrients get into the fruits and vegetables.

It's an unfortunate fact of modern life.  Even when we try to return to the wholesome goodness of whole food, real foods, something is lacking.  Thanks to the various methods of modern farming and transport, even the whole foods we eat are lacking in vital nutrients.

Even though modern farming methods are depleting nutrients, fresh is still best, and better still fresh from farms that have not depleted the nutrients of the farm soil.  Knowing where the fruit and vegetables come from is a good solution for getting good nutrition.  While nobody would suggest switching from a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables to a diet of canned fruits and veggies, it's important to understand why your fresh produce might not be as fresh or as nutrient-dense as you think.

A little known fact that most farmers and researchers alike are not aware of, or if aware they don’t care about, is that there are many nutrients that the human body relies on for good health and disease free living called “trace minerals.”  The thing that makes this hard to understand is that trace minerals cannot be studied and listed because they are so small.  That is why they are called “trace.”  We know they are there but we can’t quantify them.  These are the basic building blocks of life and they can’t be duplicated or replaced by man, only by nature or the natural balance of regeneration of the soil by the resting of the soil before further planting and harvesting of crops.  There is the biblical recipe for planting and land management that calls for the resting of the land for one year during every seven years and then resting the land for seven years at the end of 7 times 7 years or every 49 years.  While continuing interpreting of the scriptures have changed the ways of land usage, it is clear that the resting of the soil is a necessary requirement for the land to continue to provide nutritious vegetables and fruits.  Current commercial-farming practices do not include the resting of the land.

There are a variety of factors present in the field that can affect the nutrient quality of your fresh fruits and produce.  Over the years consumers have demanded 'prettier' fruits and vegetables, so fruits in particular are often picked when still green and ripen on their way to market.  This makes them 'prettier' but also leads to a reduction in overall nutrient value.  For example, Cartenoid in fruits increase as fruits are allowed to ripen naturally, on the vine or tree.

There is a strong farmer reliance on chemical fertilizers and a relative loss of topsoil today.  Though farmers replace much of the lost potassium and nitrogen, there is little attention paid to the loss of trace nutrients and minerals.  These are the essential building blocks to good overall nutrition.

Once fruits and vegetables leave the field, they are often transported more than 1,000 miles to market.  The older your produce, the fewer of those essential nutrients it has.  It's unknown exactly how much nutrient loss there is, but experts say produce slowly loses nutrients when stored in a cold, dark place for a period of time.  Some fruits and vegetables are more prone to this nutrient loss and can lose as much as 50% of their phytonutrients in three to five days.

The combination of these factors along with the too-generous use of pesticides and what the unknown effect of sitting on your grocer's shelves has on your produce means there is an unknown detriment to your produce.  Certainly no one is saying that you should give up fresh produce altogether, but you also shouldn't rely on the sign in the market saying that the fruit is "farm fresh."  Fresh produce from the market will not give you the nutrients you need to maintain your good health.

While experts say fresh is almost always best, often frozen fruits and vegetables retain more of their nutrients since processing and quick freezing occurs literally almost in the field.  But remember, if the produce doesn't have the nutrients to begin with, you can't get it in the end when you eat the produce. 

Buying fruits and vegetables that come from farms where the fruits and vegetables are grown in nutrient rich soils is best.  All of the fruits from Imports Unlimited come from the lands that until recently have been rainforests.  The soil is highly enriched with all of the necessary nutrients and trace minerals.

E-mail: info@imports-unltd.com