by Diane Sagers
GUEST COLUMNIST
Apricots, pears, peaches, cherries and plums. Add to that small fruits including strawberries, raspberries and grapes, and a few annual garden fruits, perhaps cantaloupes and watermelons, and those pretty much covered the fruit choices available to our pioneer forbearers who settled in this valley. Perhaps at Christmas they might find an orange in their stocking.
My how things have changed. The advent of fast, reliable transportation has broadened our fruit choices drastically. Today, we are likely to find oranges, grapefruit, kiwi, lemons, tangerines and pineapples on the shelves of the local grocery store. And the choices are still expanding. American consumers are trying more fruit varieties than ever before -- especially exotic tropical ones. We don't have a true tropical environment in the continental United States, however, a small area in south Florida with a subtropical climate does raise some tropical fruits.
I went to a demonstration farm in south Florida a few years back where I was introduced to a broad range of fruits I had never seen, heard of or imagined. Prior to that, I had no clue that such fruits existed. They were offering samples of these fruits and I found they had delightful flavors. One of my favorites was the star fruit (carambola), which is an oblong yellow fruit with deep lobes. Cut it crosswise and it forms perfect five-point star slices. Besides its taste, it was quite a novelty.
I assumed that these fruits must not ship well since no one was offering them "up north" or "out west." However, since that time, I have run across a few of these in grocery stores.
Farmers from southern Florida are introducing such exotic species as mango, papaya, guava, sapodilla, sapote fruits and star fruits. And marketing has begun.
Nutritionists don't know too much about the nutritional benefits of these fruits yet, but research labs in Winter Haven, Fla., are devoting its energy to finding out. The USDA and Thai researchers have combined efforts to find out more about the health benefits of these fruits. So far, the findings are very promising.
They began by measuring chemical phenolic compounds, vitamin C and fiber. Not surprisingly, tropical fruits are loaded with these nutritional properties. Thailand produces southeastern varieties of these fruits, and is involved jointly with the USDA on this research.
As they checked the nutritional values of these fruits, they compared them with such common fruits and vegetables as celery, tomatos, apples, banana, kiwi, raspberries, blueberries, grapes, broccoli and cantaloupe.
Guava compares very favorably with carrots, red grapes or broccoli, but not as high as blueberries. It is higher in vitamin C and has more fiber as well. It carries more antioxidants than broccoli, tomato, onion, carrots or red grapes and is on a level with oranges and spinach. It is higher in fiber than blackberries, pears, blueberries, grapefruits and pineapple. It measures as highest of all the fruits in vitamin C.
Other tropical fruits also showed up as being very nutritious. Star fruit has very high antioxidant levels.
Mame sapote, a brown leathery skinned fruit approximately the size of a softball, has bright orange flesh inside. It is very high in fiber. Sapodilla is similar in that respect.
They are finding compounds in some fruits might help fight some cancers.
Their research will yet be expanded to check out the fruits by color. Lycopene and carotenoids are important antioxidants that show up in orange fruits like squash, carrots and tomatoes. These compounds don't show up on the tests they have done, but they do provide antioxidants.
One wrinkle in all this research is that thus far, the tests have been limited to fresh fruits and it appears that as far as nutrient content goes, the fresher the better. The researchers don't know yet what processing into juices, jellies and other foods does to the nutrient levels. More research may open the door to this information.
Since not all of these fruits are available fresh in area markets, researchers recommend that people enjoy them in drinks, jams and other products as a "value added" benefit. The vitamin C will probably not be as high in processed foods, but the antioxidant levels should still be very high.