Dried Fruit's Many Benefits

 

The benefits of having plenty of fresh fruit in your diet are many and well known. People who eat more fruits as part of an overall healthy diet are likely to have a reduced risk of some chronic diseases including the "big three" of heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Fruits also provide many nutrients vital for health and maintenance of your body.

One thing fresh fruit does not have is a long shelf life. If you don't eat it soon after you welcome it home, you may end up just throwing it out. That's not a problem with dried fruit though, which has a long and stable shelf life. But are they as nutritionally rich as their fresh versions?

As it turns out, fresh fruit does have a slight edge over dried. The vitamin and nutrient content in dried fruit is diminished somewhat through the fruit drying process, more so when that fruit is dried more aggressively commercially instead of more gently dried at home either in the oven or in a food drier. Ounce for ounce, dried fruit contains more sugar and calories than fresh fruit because most of the weight in fresh fruit is water, and that water is removed when the fruit is dried. And finally, even if it started out organic, commercially dried fruit may contain additives to help preserve it and add color.

But the long shelf life of dried fruit does give it some advantages. A 2020 study comparing the consumption of dried and fresh fruit done at the Penn State University concluded that people who regularly include dried fruits in their diet are healthier than those who don't. Researchers found that on the days study participants ate dried fruits, such as raisins, dates and figs, they consumed more key nutrients than they did on other days.

"Dried fruit can be a great choice for a nutritious snack, but consumers might want to be sure they’re choosing unsweetened versions without added sugar," explained Valerie Sullivan, a postdoctoral researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Portion sizes can also be tricky, because a serving of dried fruit is smaller than a serving of fresh since the water has been taken out. But the positive is that dried fruit can help people potentially consume more fruit because it's portable, it’s shelf-stable, and can even be cheaper."

"Minimally processed forms of fruit, including frozen and dried, have some advantages over fresh fruits," said Kristina Petersen, an assistant professor of nutritional sciences at Texas Tech University and assistant research professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State at the time this work was done. "They are available year round, are relatively consistent in quality, and can be stored for far longer than fresh. Many are also less expensive per serving than their fresh counterparts."

The study concluded that, overall, dried fruit was simply easier and more convenient to snack on than fresh fruit for many people. And that this more than compensated for any nutritional shortcomings relative to fresh fruit. Just watch your portion size.