Peach and plum have anti-tumor compounds

It has been shown in animal experiments that the components of these fruits show the ability to attack cancer cells.

Yesterday, the tenth edition of the Course on Postharvest Technology and Minimum Processing began at the School of Agronomists of the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT), in which professionals, technicians and students from 45 different countries participated, over the course of from which conclusions could be heard from studies carried out on animals that reveal that there are foods that contain bioactive components that help fight diseases.

Specifically, Professor Luis Cisneros, from Texas A&M University, mentioned the ability demonstrated in animals to have certain components of plums and peaches to kill cancer cells "selectively without touching normal cells." "This provides added value to the fruit and creates awareness in the consumer," said Cisneros, who explained that there are other fruits and vegetables with components that help prevent Alzheimer's, obesity or other chronic diseases.

Destroying myths and the truth about GMOs

In this sense, during the course we could hear statements related to fruits and vegetables that may be surprising, such as the one that refers to the fact that there are foods that produce these types of compounds in response to a "stress challenge", in a way It has been found that once the food is harvested and refrigerated, it becomes "healthier" than at the time of collection.

The UPCT course also addressed the problem of the acceptance of transgenic products in Europe. Jean Claude Pech, from the University of Toulouse, focused his talk on the advances in biotechnology applied to post-collection and, specifically, to transgenic products.

The French teacher denounced the use that borders on manipulation that activists are making when trying to link situations such as mad cows or the Chernobyl accident with these products, going so far as to say that “scientists do bad things with food and have included GMOs.” in this".
America is one of the continents that produces the most transgenic foods, since it is not in vain that it dedicates some 160 million hectares to this production, while Spain cultivates only 100,000 hectares.

Among the speakers of the UPCT course, the Italian Giancalo Colelli, from the Università degli Studi di Foggia, also stood out. This focused on the quality of the fruit and vegetable raw material for minimal processing. Specifically, he referred to fourth-range products, which are those that are already prepared for the consumer, such as packaged salads.

"They are very expensive products per kilo, but their quality is also very high," he stated, while indicating that they are good products a priori, since they have gone through a prior filtering process. In Europe, most of them are concentrated in supermarkets, while "only 20% of restaurants purchase these products."