Will letting fruits and veggies sit in the fridge or on the counter affect their nutritional value?
You may have heard this one before: The longer you store fruits and vegetables, the more nutrition they lose. That's false, say Belgian researchers who found that storing certain fruit and vegetables either at room temperature or in a refrigerator did not result in a loss of antioxidant content. According to the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry study, antioxidant capacity of produce remains stable over time up until the point you may classify them as a science experiment.
What produce are storage stars? Black grapes contained the highest antioxidant levels, followed by bananas, cherries, green grapes, lemons, strawberries and plums. Red and yellow peppers topped the ranking for vegetables and were followed closely by spinach, broccoli and garlic.
