The fresher the food and drinks you consume, the better your health?

[timeuser84]

Hi again all, question is in the title of this thread. I also want to note that I am talking about healthy food and drinks only. Does eating fresher food increase ones life span OR have you live longer? I thought of this question recently and didn't google it at all as I thought that would be a waste of time for me as well as so I can avoid the BS out there. I figured I would go straight to the horses mouth first or have a professional answer.

 

[DaveE]

This area is sort of a test case for one's ability to either say "I don't know", or to live with that answer. No one knows, IMO.

Once you get beyond the basics, like how not to get scurvy or ricketts, 99.999% of nutritional facts are unsupported by useful research. Same for lifespan research in complex creatures. The subject is too complex and we can't do experiments with good controls on the confounding processes to draw any dramatic conclusions.

OTOH, since I'm not great at saying "I don't know". Sure, go for it, eat fresh food; it sounds good to me.

 

[256bits]

define 'fresh'

 

[jim mcnamara]

Fair warning: please do not post some edgy theory about foods, or promotions for food storage. Or the post will be removed

In general, all foods undergo changes over time, so somewhat yes depending on what you are talking about.
If you mean longevity in the general population, that relates far more to greatly improved health care than fresher foods. Anybody pushing freshness as a tremendous health benefit is selling something.

Hot chocolate mix was found almost 1`00 years after it was placed on a shelf in Antarctica. Apparently still good. Hardly fresh.
https://antarctic-logistics.com/2015/03/19/tea-or-cocoa-fueling-the-debate/

See the food poisoning comment at the bottom.

1. pests - ex: flour can develop "weevils" seemingly out of nowhere because there are eggs in most wheat flour.
So pests can degrade many foods over time or in storage at the farm. Some flour is treated to reduce the problem. Check out the levels of frass allowed in samples of wheat:
https://www.gipsa.usda.gov/fgis/publication/ref/Stored Grain Insects_2015-03-04.pdf
They do not term it as frass for obvious reasons.

1a. Pest infestations transmit pathogens, ex: Hantavirus in white footed (deer) mice link:
https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/diseases/hantavir.html

2. Saprohytic organisms (fungi and bacteria) cause rot, spoilage, degradation of nutritive qualiity, and toxins (or all four) depending on storage and the food types. Fresh produce and meats, fish, and fowl are examples.

3 Frozen: long term, frozen items are damaged by enzymatic and chemical changes to food. Most changes not harmful as far as is known. These are natural processes. They just change taste or appearance. Blanching foods prior to freezing helps a lot. Clarence Birdseye figured this out first and became rich packaging frozen vegetables.
Recommended maximum periods of frozen storage for foods FDA link:
https://www.fda.gov/media/74435/download
Clarence Birdseye: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Birdseye

We could go on, but in general shelf stability and food safety & quality has increased tremendously since the end of WWII. Note "diarrhea, enteritits... etc" as a major cause of death in 1900. This what we now term 'food poisoning' Link:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/lead1900_98.pdf

The problems with the internet on this subject are almost overwhelming. As you noted. Get information from the USDA, WHO, NIH, FDA. Not 'Raw foods vita-mix blender pulverizer' ads.

 

[timeuser84]

Thanks all who responded, All try to follow those rules from now on