Are Oranges The World’s Most Nutritious Fruit?

Something many healthy eaters have pondered over the years is which is the most nutritional fruit, and now scientists from Yale University in New Haven may have finally found the answer.

Dr David Katz, director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Center, and his team of researchers have created the NuVal Nutritional Scoring System. They award points to fruits for their nutritional strengths, and take them away for any weaknesses. Eventually the fruits are left with a score out of 100.

When Katz and his team ran an orange through the mill it scored 100 out of 100, while apples and bananas scored 96 and 91 respectively. Oranges had a much higher score due to having significant amounts of fibre, folate, calcium, vitamin C, bioflavanoids and carotenoids.

“If you consider the concentration of a wide array of nutrients relative to calories, the orange is the most nutritious, followed by the apple, followed by bananas,” Dr Katz explains.

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