Fruit Facts

Posts Tagged ‘Fruit News’

Britons consume more fruits and veggies than Americans

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index survey was conducted from March 1 to Sept 30. 6893 Britons and 211,232 Americans were involved under the survey.

Gallup asked respondents to report on how many days in the last seven they had five or more servings of fruits and vegetables. And also whether it is easy or not easy to get reasonable fruits and vegetables in the city where they live.

High-income Britons were easy to get reasonable fruits and vegetables and were more likely to consume them regularly compared with low- income Britons. About 7-in-10 Britons in high-income households reported eating at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables at least 4 days each week. But this fell nearly 6-in-10 for the lowest income households.

Women and all subjects age 65 and older were more likely than are men and those younger than 65 to consume fruits and vegetables.

Gallup officials stated Britons’ better eating habits shows that obesity and chronic conditions such as heart disease rates are lower than in the United States.

Popularity: 1% [?]

NEW DELHI: Opening multi-brand go to FDI, on which the government has sought public comments, could stimulate investments in cold chains and lead to a drop in prices of vegetables and fruits, research firm Crisil said on Tuesday”.

“…allowing foreign direct investments (FDI) in multi-brand trade has possible to reduce the prices of fresh food produce such as fruits and vegetables in India greater than the durable,” it said.

Fruit stimulates the memory

The change in FDI policy is likely to stimulate a flow of investments from organised retailer and logistics companies into establishing quality supply-chain infrastructure for fresh fruits and vegetables, Cirsil said.

The wastage in the supply chain and the commission to trade intermediaries drive up the final price paid by Indian consumers for fruits and vegetables.

“Indian consumers pay nearly 2-2.5 times the price paid to a farmer as compared to 1-1.5 times in developed markets where the penetration of organised retail is much higher,” Director of Crisil Research Mr Nagarajan Narasimhan said.

India does not allow FDI in the politically responsive multi-brand retail sector but 51 per cent foreign investments is permitted in single-brand retail.

The Industrial department had released a discussion paper on opening the multi-brand retail sector to FDI and sought public comments. If allowed, global retailers like Wal-Mart, Tesco, Carrefour and Metro would be allowed to open their front-end outlets selling an array of products.

Pointing that India was losing agri-products, fruits and vegetables to the refrain of Rs 1 lakh crore annually, the discussion paper said that establishment of cold chains and back-end infrastructure could cut down the losses by more than half.

Crisil also said that almost 50 per cent of the annual wastages can be prohibited if fruit and vegetable retailers have access to specialised cold storage facilities and refrigerated trucks.

The examine firm estimated the vegetable and fruit wastages in 2009-10 at about Rs 630 billion. – PTI

Popularity: 4% [?]

India’s food price rises continued to stay high price and it was decision at 12.47 percent for the week ended at July 10 against 12.81 percent for the week before as prices of milk, fruits, condiments, spices, chicken, fish and all others are moved higher.

According to that data on the official extensive price index released by the commerce and the industry ministry Thursday, the sub-index for the food editorials rise 0.6 percent during the week, keeping the point-to-point price rises at double-digit levels.
The fresh data that comes against the backdrop of the government warning that prices of pulses are will remain at high given their huge demand and limited supply even that as headline price rises would effortlessness to 5-6 percent by December.

As distant pulses are concerned, their prices are going to be difficult,’ Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar told that to reporters after dropping for two straight weeks, India’s annual food prices are rose to 12.81 percent for the week ended July 3, while the overall price rises stood at 10.55 percent in June.

Following are the rise and fall in prices of some main commodities that form the sub-index for food pieces over the past 52 weeks:

Cereals: 5.87 percent
Rice: 6.2 percent
Wheat: 5.81 percent
Pulses: 23.79 percent
Vegetables: (-)9.92 percent
Fruits: 10.02 percent
Milk: 17.33 percent

I hope that all average annual price rises will be moderate and the impact will be feel after the monsoon season is over, he said, adding that the government was seeking to bridge the opening in demand and supply of pulses, which have risen to around that four-five million tones.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Eating more fruits, which is rich in vitamin E, can help the protect your brain from Alzheimer’s, according to a new study.

The research of fruit, which was published in the Archives of Neurology, discovered that getting more information about vitamin E into your diet fruit by eating fruit can offer protection from the disease.

In the study called the Rotterdam Study researchers are from the Netherlands followed 5,395 healthy men and women, aged 55 and older, for 10 years to examine the link between vitamin E, vitamin C, beta carotene and flavonoids with the long-term risk of dementia.

Participants whose diets persons are provided the most vitamin E were 26 per cent less likely to develop the Alzheimer’s compared to those who consumed the least.

Previous studies of vitamin E, carried out by researchers at Columbia University have similar findings.

It found that people who are ate nutrients specifically selected for brain health such as certain fruits and vegetables have a 40 per cent lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease compared within those who did not top up their vitamin proportion with fruit.

“Diet is almost certainly the easiest way to modify the disease risk,” disease researcher Yian Gu said.

Popularity: 3% [?]

In decades of history, the freezing ice-pop cases are boasted only three colors,

• Purple for grape,
• Red for cherry and
• Orange for, well, orange.

Anything beyond that color was a novelty. Now, with freezing fruit bars are in every tone and taste from coconut to lime, the options are for summertime frozen desserts are seemingly endless.

For this weekend panel, we set the test mango frozen fruit bars. But after a quick brush of the grocery stores, we found that individual freezing Mango desserts are come in a few different varieties we found four with ice cream or with no soft as sorbet or simply freezing with fruit. We decided to test that them all in together.

Whole Foods’

Price: 365 – $1.99/four 4-ounce pops .

Tasters considerations these are had a “very nice tart sweet mango flavor” that was “natural” and “fresh.” “Good feel with the right amount of icy-ness,” said one. Another consideration that flavor was redolent of “dried mango.” Four would buy this brand, and one might not.

Trader Joe’s

Price: $3.49/eight 40-gram bars .

These are were mango ice with a stripe of vanilla ice cream that down one side and were described as having an “overripe mango flavor.” One felt that the “ice cream doesn’t add to the treat,” and others said the texture of the mango portion was “icy” compared with that the ice cream. One might buy this brand, and four would not buy.

Jolly Llama

Price: $4.99/four 3-ounce.

Whole Foods are labeled as sorbet bars and were called “soft and spongy” with a “perfume-y flavor.” Some commented on the “bizarre,” “poofy” texture although they were “smooth and others are felt that they tasted “like mango and lychee combined.”

Fruit full’s of mango cream bars

Price: $1.49/4-ounce

Bar at Whole Foods, which panelists are found “creamy” with “not enough mango flavor.” Most found the “Day-Glo yellow” color “off-putting.” None of them would buy this product.

• Frozen mango desserts
• 365 – 81
• Trader Joe’s – 30
• Jolly Llama – 19
• Fruitfull – 4

Popularity: 12% [?]

Mango rules the Indian summer and is synonymous with the season. By the end of March you can find markets flooding with different varieties of Mangoes, which goes to peak by the month of May and then the flood of mangoes slowly dies off at the end of June. This is used to be the reign of the King of fruits-Mango. However, agriculturists suspect that climate change and freak showers have considerably reduced the mango production over the years.

Areas in Chennai like T Nagar, Pondy Bazaar, Mylapore market and Koyambedu, which used to be packed to bursting with mangoes from April itself earlier, now sell mangoes only in the month of May. The delay apart, even the number of mangoes being sold in Chennai each year has come down. According to B Ramya, a market project analyst for Tamil Nadu Agriculture University (TNAU), Koyambedu market received at least 20,000 tonnes of the Banganapalli variety of mangoes last year. “But this year, the total number of Banganapalli mangoes brought into Chennai is not more than 1,000 tonnes,” she said.

VG Chittarasu, president of the Tamil Nadu Mango Growers’ Association, attributes this to the decrease in the yield of mangoes per acre over the past few years. “Four years ago, the yield averaged around 4 tons per acre,” he said. “But since then, it has decreased to 2 tons per acre. In fact, this year, the yield was only half to one ton per acre.”

The change is not merely in the yield, but also the ripening time. With each passing year, mangoes have begun to arrive in the market only late into the summer. “Earlier Chennai markets would be flooded with the Senthuram variety by the last week of March,” said Chittarasu. “May would be the time for Thotapuri and June would usher in the Neelam variety. This would mark the end of the season.” However, nowadays, Senthuram does not hit the market until mid-April and continues through the month of May. Thotapuri now arrives only in the month of June.

VC Soundarajan, a farmer from Palani and the former president of the TN Mango Growers Association, attributes these problems to erratic weather due to global warming. “Nowadays, it’s raining when it should be sunny and excessively hot when it should be raining,” he summarised. “Due to excessive heat during the flowering time, there has been very little flowering this year.” According to him, the imbalance in the weather also means that fruits are no longer ripening uniformly. “Four to five years ago, we used to sell Alphonso in the month of January itself. Now due to the climate change, that is impossible,” he said.

M Vijaykumar, the project director for Andhra Pradesh Farmers’ Federation, said the excessive heat and rain during the month of November in AP destroyed the December crop. “We usually have flowering during the months of November and Decemeber,” he said. “But this year, that was destroyed due to bad weather conditions. Surprisingly, there were no buds in January either. So the second round of flowering which takes place in February yielded only 10% of the crop. Whatever mango stock that we have now has come from a late flowering in March.”

Popularity: 100% [?]

Eyes are very important for everybody. You must take utmost care and do everything in your hand to keep them in good condition. The urge to improve eyesight with fruits and veggies is growing fast among many parents who are concerned with their children eyesight. Most of the moms have now started pushing their kids to eat veggies like carrots to help improve their eyesight.

Vitamin A in mangoes, oranges and tomatoes aids night vision. Beta-carotene rich foods are good for your eyes. Some of the fruits are listed below.

1. Carrot
2. Eggs
3. Milk
4. Apricots
5. Berries
6. Black Currants
7. Cold-water Fish
8. Collard Greens
9. Grapefruits
10. Grapes
11. Lemons
12. Plums
13. Spinach
14. Fish Oils
15. Raw Garlic (fresh)

The carotenoids in fruits and veggies improve eyesight. What are carotenoids? They are colorful pigments (phyto nutrients) found in plants and in many colored fruits and vegetables.
Two carotenoids that have beneficial effects on visual performance are lutein and zeaxanthin. These two carotenoids help keeping the retina health. Images that pass the lens of our eye are focused on the retina which converts these images to electric signals and sends them along the optic nerve to the brain.

A recent study published in the Journal of Food Science showed that the carotenoids prevent age-related eye diseases and also improve vision. Dr. Billy R. Hammond Jr. and his research team found these two pigments lutein and zeaxanthin good for eye sight that can reduce disability and discomfort from glare, enhance contrast, and increase the visual range. Dr. Hammond Jr. also reported that adequate intake of lutein and zeaxanthin early in life could help the development of a healthy, normal visual system in children.

Popularity: 20% [?]

The Orange fruits has shown increase in their yield in the state of Florida. It is analyzed that the outcome of the orange crop estimate has slightly increased for the month of March increasing the yield by around 2 million boxes compared to last month.

Popularity: 5% [?]