The ABC of fruit and vegetables

Every day we are bombarded with reminders that you need to eat a balanced diet per day, at least three different vegetables and two different fruit. But the selection of the most fresh and ripe vegetables and fruits have their own science.

Fragrant herbs, for example, must have a seemingly fresh and juicy green. Do not take drooping, darkened or yellowed grass. In addition, the stronger its flavor, so it is fresh.

In corn cob leaves should be bright green (not brown or in spots), and silk - shiny and yellow. Kernels should be poured, not battered and crumpled or dented.

Cucumbers should be dark green and firm, not soft and not wrinkled. Thin stubby cucumbers usually tastier and juicier than thick and long.

Fresh eggplant defined green leaves (brown - overripe). The skin should be smooth, shiny and unscratched. The lighter the eggplant, the less it will pips.

By choosing green beans, bend a couple of pods in half. If they break with a bang, as the branches, so the beans is good, fresh. If they bend, such as rubber, they become rigid during cooking. Look for bright, not faded green.

In peppers the skin should always be smooth and bright. If the peppers are not dense and strong, so they started to rot and overripe.

Good tomatoes - strong, always suffused with a beautiful red color. Those that are sold even with leaves and branches, ripened on the vine, more expensive, but much tastier usual cheap to collect the green and allow to mature before being sold.

When choosing zucchini - green and yellow (zucchini), - press lightly on the tips. If they are soft, pliable, zucchini - old. Look for sturdy and small. Those that are much longer than 15 cm, can be bitter.

Apricots are looking for unbroken, with a velvety skin and, most importantly, an intense orange-yellow color. Do not buy green apricots, they are tasteless, even when ripe.

When the berries are sold in cardboard boxes, see that they were dry, not sticky, and that they had absolutely no mold. If they are wet, or at the bottom of the boxes broke them spot is better not to take.

A good nectarine skin is bright, orange-yellow and smooth. They can be hard to buy and give them to lie down for two days in a paper bag. But avoid bruising or very small.

The darker the red flesh of the watermelon in, so it sweeter. The more white watermelon seeds, the less ripe. If you buy a whole, uncut watermelon, look to the lower part, on which he was lying on the plantation, was yellow rather than white.