“Eat at least five fruits and vegetables a day,” everyone knows the hammer’s recommendation, especially on television during commercials. However, few people really apply it. The French consume only half the recommended amount. Only 36% of French adults and 14% of children consume five daily servings of 80 grams. This is certainly more than in 2016 when this result reached only 6% in children.
Very high prices and limited canning, fresh fruits can present a deterrent to small budgets or those who would not be accustomed to consuming them. However, there are alternatives with much longer storage times: canned, frozen or boiled fruits, so-called processed fruits make it possible to supplement these insufficient daily intakes.
Compost: not just for kids
Essential for parents, compotes occupy a major place in the diet of young children. And when they grow up, gourd composts are a must in picnic baskets during school or leisure excursions.
Thus, children who consume compote are three times more likely to reach the standard of consuming five fruits and vegetables per day than non-consumers. A jar of compote or a gourd effectively corresponds to one of these fruit rations. Why deprive yourself of it as an adult?
In addition to the traditional apple-banana and apple-strawberry, compost manufacturers have for several years offered the most original recipes for adults: chestnut, lychee, exotic fruit … Compost is no longer limited to apples, even if this fruit remains. the basic ingredient in most recipes, and lets you change the flavors.
Your favorite fruits all year round
Rather, do you have very selective tastes and swear by one or two fruits in particular, even if it means ignoring them when it is not in season? Why not go back to canned or frozen fruits?
Pear, very brittle when fresh, is the queen of canned food. The cake is certainly not in vain: the French, busy with household products during the closing, have rediscovered canned fruit. Factory sales increased by 64%.
For red fruits, it is in the frozen section that you will find the largest selection throughout the year. Raspberries, strawberries, currants, black currants… depending on weather changes, these fruits are widely valued in this format. However, they do not hold the monopoly, as there are also pineapples, mangoes, chestnuts, frozen apricots, but also nectarines cut in half and without holes or rhubarb pieces for more practicality.
Fruits in syrup, compote: not too sweet?
What about the nutritional qualities of these products? Processing technologies now make it possible to prevent the loss of nutrients that can occur during cooking, damage that however is tricky to avoid in an individual ’s kitchen due to lack of precise tools. Processed fruits are also prepared immediately after harvest, which again retains their nutritional and taste benefits.
What about their reputation for sweet products? Canned fruits, formerly called fruit in syrup, are no longer like this: as of 2019, couverture juices no longer have this name and are no longer subject to a minimum sugar content. Their sugar level has thus dropped and is now close to the natural sugar content of the fruit.
As for classic compotes, they now appear on the shelves alongside low-fat compotes or strictly fruit purees with no added sugar. Thus, if there is 23 grams of sugar in a jar of compote and 14 grams in a jar of low-fat compote, a jar of fruit puree contains only 11.6 grams, an amount similar to that of apple. Classic compotes, with a sugar content of more than 24%, now represent only 4% of the references traded since 2017, while those without added sugar make up 40% of the catalog.
Thus, fruit purees and canned fruits mostly have a Nutriscore A. Finally, frozen fruit bags simply contain only… fruit.
Bad baby only: jam, classified C and not recommended except in the context of five daily servings. To stay fit, limit yourself to one teaspoon of yogurt and two tablespoons of bread for breakfast.