Paddock to Plate and Nutrient Loss

Some spinach can loose 90% of it’s nutritional value within 24 hours of picking.

The term paddock to plate as far as I can see is just some chefs with their heads up their own bums trying to convince people their food is fresh – “more seasoning you bloody idiot, where is the salt you fool”, that’s because the produce has already lost it’s flavour. 

Now I’m not a scientist I’m just a farmer these days who likes to read what scientists whom study stuff about farming have found. Following is my quick summation, main sources listed below.  Many articles with actual scientific data are from the US where methods of getting food from California to the supermarkets in New York then into the fridges of consumers has been studied. 

After harvesting  plants continue to ‘live’ or  ‘breathe’ and that process is called respiration.  This process is the breakdown of materials such as carbohydrates, fats and proteins that leads to a loss of flavour and nutrients. Vitamin C loss in picked vegetables, which are stored at 4 degrees Celsius for 7 days can range from only 15% in green peas to 77% in green beans.  Some fruits like apples and pears can be stored for up to a year with little loss through respiration however they are kept in a low oxygen environment but high in carbon dioxide. You know – that car exhaust stuff.  

Let’s for a moment consider the paddock to plate experience an average city consumer via a supermarket or a restaurant. The vegetables are picked during Monday and packed in their various containers and wrapped in a big shed overnight and they are off to the distribution points early the next morning. The trucks take a day to get to the cities and be unloaded and the vegetables set out and displayed for wholesale customers the next morning.  If its via a supermarket then the vegies are going through their distribution network out to individual stores. Even at it’s best the Restaurant serving that night will have produce 3 or 4 days old and a householder closer to 5 days remembering householder save some of their shopping in the fridge for around 7 days . In a sweeping statement I found most produce looses 30% of it nutrients in 3 days if being transported fresh. 
My recommendation is find a local farmer’s market and get your produce fresh.

I’m not boasting, well yes I am, my paddock to plate experience is 5 minutes 22 seconds because that is the time it takes to walk from my vegetable garden to my kitchen. 

A good short summary paper I read was by Dianne M Barrett  URL Link but there are plenty others like Rickman et al. (2007a, b) and papers by University of California. 

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