When you are trying to lose weight, you want to squeeze out the most beneficial nutrients from the least amount of food. In other words, you want the most vitamins and minerals for the least calories. So which is better - canned food or fresh food? Conventional wisdom says that fresh food is better because the process of canning the food removes valuable nutrients.
The problem with this piece of conventional wisdom is that many people define the phrase "fresh food" too leniently. Far too many housewives, and even educated persons, consider that the apple or pear or head of cabbage they buy from the local grocer or supermarket is fresh. They make this assumption simply because the food does not come in a can. Unfortunately for them, many of the fruits and vegetable found in their local grocer and markets have been exposed to the environment for a few days or weeks before they even reach the market. The entire process of picking the fruits and vegetables, transport from the farm to the centralized warehouses, to washing and packing, transporting from the centralized warehouse to the final warehouse, and final transport to the grocer or market could take several days or weeks.
This is an eternity for vegetables and thin-skinned fruits, which quickly lose their vitamins when exposed to air. Even with modern refrigerated trucks, this loss of vitamins cannot be arrested completely. You also have to remember that the produce is not refrigerated when being loaded and unloaded to and from the trucks. This process of loading and unloading could take hours, exposing the crates of fruits or vegetables to the weather and destroying valuable and delicate vitamins.
So, does this mean canned food is better? Not necessarily. Although the proponents of canned foods say that modern canning technologies preserve the nutrients remarkably well, there are a few holes in their argument. For one thing, the canning process usually involves removing the skin of the fruit. This means that you, the consumer, no longer get to see the skin which gives the first indicator of freshness. In other words, unscrupulous businesses could be canning fruits which are no longer fresh. Secondly, the skinning is mostly done manually. This means it is not truly integrated into the canning process, so there is a gap in time in which the fruits lose the protection of their skin but have not yet been canned.
During this time, a lot of vitamins, especially vitamin C can be lost. Finally, you will also have noticed that many big businesses have actually out-sourced the lower-value parts of their businesses to Third World countries like China and India. You will probably find that the fruits come from orchards in China, which are then canned in factories in China. An obvious question to ask is "Are these (American-owned) Chinese factories using the latest canning technologies?"
In the end, for someone trying to lose weight, it is unwise to leave your nutrition in the hands of modern business. Unless you are actually buying your fruits and vegetables directly from a nearby farm or orchard, you should consume vitamin supplements when you are on a diet. Modern multi-vitamins are quite cheap, so there is no excuse for not using them.
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