"Fresh" Fruit

That fresh fruit from the store might be legally fresh – but is it really fresh?

Ideally, we’d be eating our fresh fruit right off the tree or vine – but most of us pick our “fresh” fruit from the store. That fruit might be legally fresh – but it’s often not really fresh at all. In the U.S., much of our “fresh” fruit spends days or weeks in storage and transit before it hits the grocery aisle – and it was probably crammed into dark storage on a boat, train or truck to get there. Not only does fresh fruit lose a lot of its nutritional value in that time – those are also ripe condition for dangerous bacteria to multiply.

Our best bet is to buy fruit grown locally – organic or not. Be sure to wash it regardless of where it came from. Frozen fruit is actually a pretty good choice too – as long as it is unsweetened. Some frozen fruit may actually retain more of its nutritional value than so-called “fresh” fruit.