This Week In Wellness research has found that “wounds” caused by insects may actually make fruit healthier for human consumption showing that the stress response mounted by the fruit actually increases the levels of anti-oxidants.

Principle investigator of the study Luis Cisneros-Zevallos, Ph.D.,said that “There was the existing idea proposed by others that insects present in the field in organic farming could cause a stress response in the plant and increase antioxidant compounds, however, this hypothesis or concept was never tested until now, where we mimicked the damage caused by insects. We proved that wounding leaves in plants like those caused by insects produce healthier organic fruit.”

https://phys.org/news/2020-01-wounds.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-55033-w

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