The Minnesota Dept of Agriculture has a program called Minnesota Grown,
headed by Ralph Groschen- promotes locally grown commodities over imports
but i bet that if someone did a nutrilonal lieterature search, more data
would pop out on the time of picking vs the quality of the product
So- its a good effort for an undergrad in nutrion and might get a term
paper
I would bet that there are also studines on the deterioration of nutrients
over time- this is the entire basis for storage control- For example how
do you store potatoes and have them sruvive the winter for commercial
sale-It is also the issue in post harvest storage of crops- all easily
searchable-- There are several centers for control of post harvest loss of
crops here in the US some dealing with our paroducts and a lot with
problems in thrid world
So what does it all mean. Basically, picked at peak probably gives best
nutrients but short shef life either for stoarge or transport. And as long
as we have cheap energy the transsport aspect and high tech storage will
promote shipments of commodities from great distances- so this issue is
poliltcal, environmental and health
It will be interesting to understand where we go from here
tom abeles
tabeles@tmn.com