So, we’re going to step a little outside of our lane and talk about food nutrition. A lot of people choose to grow their own (or buy locally, from a farmer) because they inherently know that fresher food is better for them. That’s true and it ties heavily into concepts like food preservation as well.
A key point to understanding food nutrition is to understand the enzymatic process. One of the core tenants of the biological process is that enzymes are responsible for breaking down food into various macronutrients and amino acids that the body can then directly use. Examples of these enzymes include amylase, peptidase, cellulase and so on. These various enzymes are responsible for breaking down various carbohydrates, proteins, starches, cellulose and sugars into useful components that your body can use.
These enzymes exist within us, they are part of our “gut biome” if you will. But, they are also in natural food and this is how we replenish those enzymes in our bodies. Enzymes are the fundamental basis for the constant cycle that allows food to create various forms of energy that our bodies use to live, repair itself and thrive. Food is the foundation of the metabolic system in our bodies.
But, since those enzymes also exist within our natural foods, they don’t just “activate” when us humans go to eat them. No, they’re working all the time, doing what they do by breaking down the organics into various bits and pieces. Other biology can also take advantage of this. As you likely know, natural foods will break down and begin to spoil if they are not eaten in time. Though food spoilage is a bit complicated, this enzymatic process also creates a cycle for various bacteria just as does for us humans.
Once a plant is no longer producing its own energy, such as after the harvest, this enzymatic breakdown process starts happening almost immediately. A little known fact is that food that is only one week old often contains less than half of the original nutrition that it once did. If the food is left long enough, other biology (such as bacteria) will move into that enzyme and nutrient rich environment, beginning the food spoilage process.
This is why one of the things we try to focus on is a relatively rapid transition from our harvest to food preservation. The primary goal of food preservation is to generally stop that enzymatic process, to prevent (or slow down) the food from progressing to the next stages of food spoilage. Our general goal is to preserve our foods with the “maximum” amount of nutrition as we can achieve.
You might also infer that if general nutrition is your goal, leaving the food on the plant until you’re ready to use it is your best strategy. Of course, there are many “plant things” that can thwart that, such as the plant flowering, perishing or even spoilage “on the vine.”
Now, things like cooking your food are also going to reduce the available nutrition in your food as well. Even preservation techniques like canning or the “blanch and freeze” process we heavily use will do so as well. Pretty much any processing of food reduces the nutrition available in the “final” product. But, it’s sensible that if you start with “maximum” nutrition, you’ll have “more” nutrition when you get to the final meal that you prepare.
We’re not even going to touch on “ultra processed” foods, complex chemical preservatives and flavor enhancers or the vast global food chains of the world. We’ll leave that for you to ponder, given the above explanations. We’re just a gardening channel and while sometimes we step out of our lane, we do try to keep to our “narrow” scope of “biology.” Thanks for indulging us and hopefully our scientific understanding of this process benefits you!
And you are “today years old” and are just now learning about how food and the body directly interacts, then congratulations. This path bears much fruit and contains more extremely important knowledge than you could possibly imagine.
