Refreshing Watermelon Mint Limeade

Research on produce freshness and nutritional quality consistently finds that the time between harvest and consumption is one of the most significant factors affecting vitamin and antioxidant content. Produce sold at farmers markets is typically harvested within twenty-four to forty-eight hours of sale, compared to the average of four to seven days for supermarket produce after harvest. Studies on specific nutrients — including vitamin C in broccoli and folate in spinach — have found losses of thirty to fifty percent over a week of refrigerated storage, suggesting that the same vegetable purchased at a farmers market on Saturday morning and consumed that day delivers meaningfully more of its nutritional potential than the same vegetable purchased at a supermarket on the same day.