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Cut fruit keeps its vitamin C


Keeping cut fruit chilled is the key to keeping vitamin C levels high, food scientists show (Image: iStockphoto)

Health conscious but time poor? Grab a pack of packaged ready-to-eat fruit and your body will be none the wiser.

That's the message from new international research showing that chilled, ready-to-eat, fresh-cut fruit retains high levels of vitamin C and other antioxidants.

Cutting and packaging fruit has almost no effect on the main antioxidants, scientists report in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

In fact, levels of some antioxidants increased in selected fruits.

Researchers including those from the University of California, Davis, took pineapples, watermelon, rockmelon, strawberries, mangoes and kiwifruits and processed half as fresh-cut and left half whole.

Both lots of fruit were refrigerated under identical conditions for nine days before being tested for nutrient content.

Tests revealed only small losses of antioxidant compounds in the cut fruit compared to fruit left whole.

For example, losses in vitamin C after six days at 5°C were less than 5% in mango, strawberry and watermelon pieces, 10% in pineapple pieces, 12% in kiwifruit and 25% in rockmelon cubes.

No losses in carotenoids, free radical scavengers that are thought to enhance the immune system, were found in kiwifruit slices and watermelon. Losses in other fruits ranged from 10-15% in rockmelon, mango and strawberry to 25% in pineapple.

Interestingly, total carotenoid content increased in mango and watermelon cubes in response to light exposure.

The findings don't surprise Australian food technologist Keith Richardson, who says cold is generally the key to keeping nutritional content.

"The fruits and vegetables are chilled prior to cutting and they don't gain a lot of temperature during the processing operation. Then they're promptly returned to below 5% before being sent out [in refrigerated trucks to sit in refrigerated supermarket cabinets]," he says.

Richardson, a food technology liaison officer with Food Science Australia, says provided the cold chain is kept "you wouldn't expect a significant loss of nutrients".

"Generally speaking, the colder you keep fruit the slower its metabolism, including any breakdown of nutrients."

Meanwhile, the research team says further studies are now needed to evaluate the effect of treatments on the nutrient retention of fresh-cut fruits.

This include treatments like modified atmosphere packaging and chemical dips for delaying softening and browning.

Tags: health, chemistry