Many of my readers have been asking me for years about the possible nutrient loss in cut fruits and vegetables. I have been packing cut fruits and vegetables in lunch box for years and even get vegetables chopped for making our curries well in advance sometimes.
I had once come across a study that claimed that the nutrients are preserved better when they are frozen but that may feel like a marketing ploy by frozen food companies in the west. For cut fruits and vegetables to be consumed within a few hours everyday the nutrients are preserved pretty well. A study in 2006 suggests that there is insignificant nutrient loss when we cut the vegetables and fruits to be consumed after a few hours. See this to understand better.
Honestly speaking, I would prefer packing cut fruit in my lunch box for the simple reason that if I pack a whole apple and a whole papaya, cantaloupe or even mosambi (sweet lime) I wont feel like eating it in the busy work schedule. If I cut them and pack them with a fork, I would eat it regularly. So even if there is a 5-10% nutrient loss I will not mind that.
However we must take care to cut and pack the fruits and vegetables in such a way that the nutrient loss is minimal. Articles have been written about the perfect way to chop fruits and vegetables too. The oxidation of nutrients in fresh produce also depends on how they have been handled during transport from the farm to your table, so choose your fruits and vegetables well when you buy.
Considering all the concerns above, I would list a few precautions and the right way to chop and store fruits and vegetables if you plan to eat them within a few hours.
1. Be careful when you buy fruits and vegetables. Already overripe and damaged fresh produce wouldn't keep well after chopping. So use the overly mature and slightly damaged produce of cooking or for immediate consumption. It is not a good idea to store them even in uncut form.
2. Ensure a clean dry chopping board to chop the fruits and vegetables you are planning to pack in lunch box. Chopping boards are known to transmit E. Coli and Listeria innocua, especially where raw food is handled in bulk amounts. You wouldn't want upset stomach after eating raw foods.
3. Use a clean dry and sharp knife to chop. While cleanliness of the knife is to be ensured for the same reason as above, keeping the knife sharp is to minimize damage to the fruit and vegetables being chopped. More damage to the cells means more oxidization during storage.
4. Use clean, dry, opaque and airtight boxes to store and carry cut fruits and vegetables. Exposure to sun and air fastens the process of oxidization.
5. Sterilize your storage boxes or lunch boxes, chopping boards and knives properly at suitable intervals.
6. Use a salad dressing to prevent nutrient loss from some of the cut fruits and vegetables. The acidic oily dressings ensure preserving the nutrients better and even help in better absorption of nutrients as well.
7. Hand tearing of lettuce and surface peeling of carrots is reported to be relatively free of bacterial contamination. The naturally torn surface of fresh produce cause minimal damage to the cells and it doesn't support bacteria growth.
8. Keeping the cut fruit chilled helps a lot. Do not pack cut fruits if you have to keep the lunch box in a hot place or in a car that is parked in the sun.
9. If mixing raw leafy greens or chopped onion, tomatoes etc to chickpea or black eyed peas salads, take care to cool down the cooked beans first and then mix with raw ingredients. It helps retain the texture and freshness of raw ingredients and prevents any unwanted fermentation or bacterial or fungal growth too.
10. Try pairing carrot sticks or raw broccoli etc with interesting dips or hummus so you don't get bored of eating healthy.
11. Local and seasonal produce is more likely to be fresh and retains its nutrients better. Try and include only locally grown fruits and vegetables generally and for cut salads too. We can depend fruits and vegetables grown within the country if not within the town.
12. The lunch box should be made of nonreactive material. This is a commonsense and I really don't need to enlist it since most of us use lunch boxes made of either stainless steel or good quality nonreactive plastic, but do remember that all plastic is not nonreactive and most plastic lunch boxes can be harmful when they are used for deep freezing and reheating in microwave ovens. It is better to pack food that can be eaten at room temperature. Reheating should be done for a really brief spurt of time if needed, dry food should not be reheated in MW ovens and too much reheating should be avoided absolutely.
13. The lunch box should be non abrasive material, and non abrasive cleaning devises should be used if using good quality plastic lunch boxes. If the lunch boxes get abrasion on the inner surface it helps breed pathogens, fungi and bacteria and any raw food kept in them is not safe for consumption. Liquid detergents and a soft brush is good to clean plastic (Tupperware) lunch boxes.
14. Adding chopped nuts and seeds to chopped salads ensures the lunch box meal is filling and nutritious both. Same applies if you include a peanut butter or tahini based dip with carrot sticks or broccoli etc.
15. Sprouts make great raw and fuss free lunch box salads so keep including them to your chopped salads if you don't want to spend much time on assembling the lunch boxes. Pomegranate seeds are great additions to such salads.
I will be sharing a few more useful posts about packing healthy lunch boxes after this, there are a few exciting giveaways too so stay tunes and comment on all these posts sharing your concerns and experiences. It is a series of 4 blogposts and comments on each post will be eligible to enter the giveaway.
Keep commenting and enter a chance to win a useful set of lunch boxes. Share your ideas about how you pack fruits and raw vegetables in lunch boxes, how you like them and what precautions you take while packing such lunch boxes.
Don't forget to provide your mail id if you are entering the giveaway.
