It is the time of year for resolutions and many of us want a healthier diet. One of the best ways to do that is to include more fruits and vegetables in our diet.
It’s important to understand that there are differences in the nutrients in raw and cooked foods. The way we prepare food allows different nutrients to become available to us, and it also can make it more palatable. Cruciferous veggies, like Brussels sprouts or broccoli, contain some amazing antioxidants called glucosinolates. These nitrogen- and sulfur-containing compounds give the vegetables their bitter flavor to deter herbivorous insects from chowing down on them. For humans, though, the compounds are anti-inflammatory and can prevent early cell death. Eating the veggies raw, you get one set of antioxidants; eating them steamed or roasted so that you lose none of the other water-soluble nutrients, allows another set of antioxidants to become bioavailable (more able to be used by your body). If you want to skip the high-calorie dips or dressings used to make your raw broccoli better to eat, just steam it; it’s just as good for your body steamed as raw!
The produce with the most nutrients are the ones with the shortest ‘pick to shelf’ time. I spoke with Sal Sabatino and his son Vinny, of Bethel Organics and Specialty Market on Elizabeth Street, Bethel, on this topic. Sabatino spends a lot of his very early mornings searching for the freshest local produce, sourcing it from many different places. He told me that people are surprised when they come to his store and find that the prices aren’t as expensive as organic food in large supermarkets. The benefit of his hard work is that the produce arrives on his shelves long before that of the bigger grocery stores, so the nutrient density of his produce is almost at its peak, meaning not only is it at its best providing for your body, it also keeps longer in your fridge.
Global shipping and chemically promoted ripening in storage have enabled fruit to be available year-round, though they aren’t always the tastiest. Climacteric fruits, like apples, bananas, or avocados, can be picked when they are slightly unripe, and finish the ripening process in warehouses filled with their ripening hormone, ethylene. This is why leaving the less ripe fruits purchased from the store in a plastic (polyethylene) bag works to ripen them too! Strawberries are non-climacteric fruits. Picking them early and ripening them in the same way just means that they ripen on the outside but not the inside. “We have forgotten how to eat seasonally,” says Sabatino. “Everyone’s grown up with supermarkets, people don’t realize some produce available isn’t in season.” I asked him what we should eat right now, and he said, “This time of year, all your citrus is just coming to the peak, along with pomegranates and persimmons, until March.” Sounds delicious, I will be over here eating a clementine!
