As if I haven’t given you enough reasons to get out to your local farmer’s market and take advantage of all the fruits and vegetables that are in season right now, here’s another one.  It’s been scientifically proven that they help prevent and fight cancer.
These are the health-promoting compounds that occur naturally in foods:

• Anthocyanidins - Antioxidants with anti-inflammatory properties.  Think purple: beets, blackberries, blueberries, cherries, red grapes and purple cabbage.

• Carotenoids - protect vital fatty acids and enhance immune response.  Good sources: apricots, carrots, dark leafy greens, yams, squash, and tomatoes.

• Lutein - an antioxidant that helps protect cells and maintains health of eyes, heart, skin, and breasts and cervix in women.  Go green: spinach, collard greens, kale, leeks, peas and romaine lettuce

• Lycopene - reduces risk of prostate cancer in men.  Overall, it’s also a potent antioxidant and prevents damage to DNA.  Tomatoes have the highest percentage of lycopene; other food sources include watermelon, pink grapefruit and guava juice.

• Sulfer compounds - may help remove cancer -causing agents from your body as well as improve estrogen balance.  Mr. Mustard Family: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, mustard greens, radishes, and turnips

The easiest way to make sure you’re selecting a good mix of cancer-fighting fruits and vegetables is by observing the colors: purple, orange, dark green and pink/red.  A mix like this is not only pleasing to your body but also to your eye.

A team of Belgium scientists recently tested 29 different fruits and vegetables to see what happens to their antioxidant capacity over time. Details of the study can be found here. Interestingly, most of the fruits and vegetables had stable levels of antioxidants even after visual signs of spoilage began and many actually expressed higher levels of antioxidants as they began to spoil. So apparently there must be some sweet spot between fresh-off-the-vine and rancid where you get the most health benefits without causing yourself to hurl.

Not surprisingly, I’ve decided not to optimize my fruit and vegetable intake to take advantage of this new insight. Taste trumps nutrition in this case – especially since the difference was usually not that much (except for onions, see below*). But it’s good to know that even if you don’t have a garden or have a farmer’s market nearby that you can get the same (maybe even more) nutritional value from the fruits and vegetables at your local supermarket.

* There where some notable fruits and vegetables that you do want to eat as fresh as possible. These include apricots, spinach, bananas, broccoli and leeks. In contrast, the vegetable with the biggest increase over time was the onion, which continually increased its antioxidant capacity over time - after 23 days onions had over 10 times more than they had when they were fresh!