Current study Stress makes vegetables better

More phytochemicals through the influence of light
Eating half a pound of broccoli or white cabbage a day to get enough antioxidants - unthinkable. But it would be extremely cheap in terms of the amount needed to protect us from harmful effects. Scientists are therefore increasingly thinking about how to naturally enrich the beneficial ingredients in fruits and vegetables, so that in the future smaller portions have a similar beneficial effect.

In doing so, they take advantage of the knowledge that some plants tend to accelerate the development of their storage or reproductive organs under stress and at the same time also produce more secondary substances. As a stress factor, the scientists of the project funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology chose a simple and effective source: the light.

Light stress causes vegetables to grow. Image: M.studio - fotolia

It causes stress reactions in plants at certain wavelengths and intensities. Above all, the change in the proportions of bright red, dark red or blue light, the development of storage organs and flowers can be controlled specifically. This affects, for example, the tuber of kohlrabi or the root of radishes. With radishes, for example, 48 percent more riboflavin was formed under a red foil. A similar effect was triggered by Kohlrabi's green foil.

The experiments also showed that not only the required color spectrum is different, but also the time: The change in the light spectrum is meaningful only in certain stages of development of plants, the scientists. In the 1990s it was found that antioxidants from fruits and vegetables have a health-promoting and preventive effect against cancer. The fact that plants create substances that are particularly needed by humans when exposed to stress due to environmental factors during (light) stress is perhaps another sign that nature is the cleverer inventor than humans. (Friederike Heidenhof, aid)