Dr. Gourmet's Health and Nutrition Bites
October 13, 2006

Calcium and Melons: Is your calcium intake low? Eating more foods high in calcium is important to a lot of people.

Try using your melon!

That's right. Melons, like the honeydew and cantaloupe varieties, contain more calcium than you'd think. In fact, through the use of a new preserving process that's recently been developed, a 1 cup serving of melon could provide up to 10% of your daily calcium needs. And that's good news since melon consumption ranks second only to bananas as the top fresh fruit favorites in the U.S. today.

Two fellows from the USDA's Agricultural Research Service, Michael Grusak and Gene Lester, developed a technique of submerging ripe melons in a calcium solution to make its rind more durable for transportation. In doing so, they later found that the calcium made its way into the fruit itself.

Not only can this process double the fruit's shelf life (up to 24 days), but it can add a much needed mineral enhancement. While their experiment was done on greenhouse melons, further experimentation will be done on the field-grown varieties. The outlook is good that by using this new processing procedure, we may reap even more benefits from eating these tasty fruits.

What this means for you: This news is good for everybody: the farmers, the marketers and the consumers. This process could produce better products and tastier fruits with more calcium!