Where and what to buy?
Choosing the right ingredients in a diet is the first step towards better health. The commonly mentioned super foods have already been listed, and the next step is the place to buy them. In order the get the maximum of the food, especially for fruits and vegetables it is essential that you buy them form a place that always offers fresh ingredients. The quality of fruits and vegetables degrades rapidly within few days, so it is not only important that the food looks good and it also should have the appropriate nutrients. Usually the taste will tell us all we need to know about the food, at least when it comes to fruits and vegetables the look may be modified and make it better than the quality though the sensory evaluation of the product is the true one. Also have in mind that in order to give the best to your body you should not impose it on different health damaging components. This means that during the production excessive amount of pesticide were not used, organic food is better for you, and that the conditions in terms of temperature, humidity and hygiene during production and storage, were proper. Many of these parameters can result on visual damage on the product (as moulds, dust, rotten product etc) and this can be avoided easily, unfortunately some threats as aflatoxins and bacteria are noted only when the damage is already done. Of course you cannot know everything about the product, however many other visible changes may even tell you something about the ones that you cannot spot. So choosing a trustworthy place for grocery shopping is essential.
When it comes to choosing a right producer, it is very important that you read the labels. Yes reading labels can be sometime boring, especially if you do not understand the half of the ingredients listed, there is one simple rule, if you do not know it just don’t buy it. It is against the law not to label the ingredient that is actually in the product. Unfortunately many times the exact same thing had happened, and in some cases the repercussions were worldwide and very much health threatening. So what does this actually means? When choosing for example a Goji berry juice, choose between the price and the content. If there are two products with almost same percentage of goji in the juice (one 6% and the other 8%) it won’t make much difference in the serving size, if there is one with 100% goji berries that this should be the one in your cup. The labeling can also be misleading, for instance there can be two juice packs with very nice photo of goji berry, look out for the one states that there is 100% Goji juice and the other one 100% fruit, it may turn out that is has only 10% goji and the rest of it is some other fruit. These packages on first sight might look the same, and that is why you actually need to read the label, to understand what are you getting for you money. For some products the thing may not change a lot in your general condition in a short period, so you won’t even notice it. Though for products based for instance on probiotics, where you expect some beneficial effect on gut health for a shorter period of time it is essential that the label of the product you are buying has enough information. It would be right for the producer to write the exact density of the probiotic strain in the time of consumption, and not in the time that they had prepare it, or even worst not at all information about the amount of colonies per ml.
Another important thing when you are choosing the products is to choose wisely the type of product to buy of certain superfood. Fresh food is always the best, only if it is really fresh. Most of the time fruits are imported form far away countries and unfortunately by the time they reach the grocery shop their quality is not that high. Try to source local producers for these superfoods, or as an alternative, try frozen if a particular ingredient is not available, it is not recommended, however when there is no choice, you may supplement this ingredient with the frozen choice. In a recent study carried out by University of Chester fresh fruits stored at 4ÚC for 3 days were evaluated for their nutrient content opposite their counter pairs frozen fruits and vegetables stored at domestic freezer at 20 ÚC. The study was made for evaluation of the impact of storage conditions. The study was carried out on blueberries, raspberries, peas, green beans, cauliflower, and baby sweetcorn. These products were evaluated for their content in vitamin C, total poyphenols, total anthocyanins and carotenoids (beta-carotene and lutein). The concentration of nutrients of frozen products was similar to the fresh ones prior their storage. During the storage the nutrient content decreased to levels below the one of frozen products, and after 3 days the difference was biggest. This was most notable at soft fruits, as the concentration of vitamin C at blueberries was 3 times lower than the in frozen ones and vitamin C in refrigerated green beans was one quarter than in the frozen green bean. Only cauliflower exhibited higher amount of vitamin C after refrigeration, however the possible explanation behind that was that the frozen cauliflower was blanched previous freezing. Total polyphenols varied in different samples of fruits and vegetables and at it was most confusing at berry fruits. They were lower in fresh fruits than in frozen ones, however they were highest, at refrigerated ones, suggesting that this might be due to ripening process than increased extractability of polyphenols. Anthocyanins decreased during refrigerating of soft fruits, and the change was much smaller in vegetables. The concentration of carotenoids was not that noticeable as it was on the previous mentioned nutrients, because the detected level in all samples was very low (Bonwick and Birch, 2013).