Sure, we all know that fruits and vegetables are good for us, but sometimes, by the time such items reach our table, their vitamin and mineral benefits may be weakened or non-existent. That is why, to ensure proper health, it is advised to include nutritional supplements in your daily diet as a safe way to maintain adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals that the body needs for optimal health performance. Did you know that the shelf life of fruits and vegetables starts deteriorating the moment that item is picked off the branch or vine? Freshness and nutritional value can't be improved after harvest, only maintained, and then for a limited period of time. A freshly picked orange, just by sitting there doing nothing, is losing its goodness at an alarming rate. And that's before it even starts its journey to your table... From the Farm to Your Dinner-Table The freshness of any food, and it's usefulness as a nutritional supplement," depends on how long its journey has taken from the place it was grown, to your home. The best scenario is that the orange that is now sitting on your table came from your own back yard just minutes ago. However, that is not reasonable for the majority of people living around the world, and food must be harvested and then packaged and trucked to other locations. Sometimes, that trip may take only a few hours, but usually, it's a matter of days. What happens to those fruits and vegetables, like our orange, in the meantime? Many different factors determine the nutritional supplement value for any shipped food product. Weather conditions are important. Is our orange sitting in humid temperatures or dry air? If it is in humid conditions then so much the better, as it is water that best retains the vitamin and nutritional value of any fruit. Water makes up a great amount of fruits, and nothing can survive without it. Grocery stores regularly spray vegetables with fine mists of water to keep those items fresh and plump. However, by the time our orange is in the grocery store, it's already lost most of it's vitamin content - and health benefits - making any water spraying a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. When Do You Need Nutritional Supplements? There is some good news, because certain foods keep better than others after harvesting. Knowing what these are may help to provide optimal health benefits as well as to help people decide what kinds of nutritional supplement they may want to look for, and what vitamins they should contain. Fruits and vegetables can be arranged into a rough scale of those that don't lose their vitamin content easily, to those at the top that often have very little nutrients in them by the time they get to the store. It is these that necessitate the use of nutritional supplements to replace lost vitamins and provide optimum health. Working from the bottom up, foods that keep longer without spoiling or losing their nutritional value are dried fruits (though often they don't have much to start with!), then apples, sweet potatoes, garlic, grapes, and potatoes. Softer fruits and vegetables will spoil faster. These may include the cabbage family, soft fruits like pears and nectarines and most types of lettuce. It also includes our poor orange. The highest decline in shelf life is seen in peas, asparagus, broccoli and mushrooms. To get the vitamins and other health benefits from these foods, nutritional supplements are needed - unless you grow them yourself! As already mentioned, if the essential vitamins and minerals in your diet come from the foods with the shortest shelf life as far as nutrient value is concerned, you may want to hedge your bets with vitamin and mineral nutritional supplements or other herbal supplements that may provide the boost that those vegetables and fruits didn't. This is not to say that you should stop eating fruit and vegetables altogether, far from it. The best thing you can to do to maintain optimal health and immunity from many common health concerns it to eat a diet rich in fiber and fruits and vegetables rich in anti-oxidants, vitamins and minerals that your body can't produce by itself. However, the power of these natural foods can be enhanced through taking nutritional supplements so that we can get the full compliment of vitamins and nutrients we need for optimum health. . And remember that when you buy your oranges, eat them as quickly as possible so that they don't suffer more than they have already.
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