Your Vegetables Are Alive — And They Change In Response To Light And Dark

The discovery, reported in Current Biology, suggests that what time we store and eat our produce may affect its nutritional value

The fruits and vegetables we buy in the grocery store are actually still alive, and it matters to them what time of day it is. The discovery, reported today in Current Biology, a publication of Elsevier’s Cell Press, suggests that the way we store our produce could have real consequences for its nutritional value and for our health.

“Vegetables and fruits don’t die the moment they are harvested,” said lead researcher Dr. Janet Braam, Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Rice University in Houston, Texas. ”They respond to their environment for days, and we found we could use light to coax them to make more cancer-fighting antioxidants at certain times of day.”