Canned fruits are an easy, fuss-free addition to breakfast. Photo / 123rf
Turn your nose up at canned peaches or prunes? Think again. Tinned fruit is cheap and can be nutritious. Here, we rank the best ones to pick.
You probably have a dusty tin of fruit lurking in the back of your cupboard – most likely pineapple, the nation’s favourite. Whether it’s within its use-by date is another matter. Yet it doesn’t need to stay consigned there, the poorer cousin, forgotten about in favour of the fresher stuff.
“An 80g portion of tinned fruit counts as one of your five-a-day, the same amount as is recommended for fresh fruit, so it really shouldn’t be sidelined as much as it is,” says registered nutritionist Emma Bardwell.
It’s an easy, fuss-free addition to breakfast and a more nutritionally balanced snack or dessert, she notes, which gives us a much healthier sugar fix compared to cakes or biscuits. What’s more, we could be saving around £650 ($1,470) a year by embracing tinned fruit, which offers good value and longer shelf lives.
Here’s all you need to know about their benefits – and the healthiest cans to choose.
“Tinned fruit provides a good source of fibre, vitamins and minerals such as potassium,” Bardwell points out. Some vitamins – such as vitamin A (needed for healthy bones and immune system) and vitamin E (which supports our skin and eyes) – are actually better preserved when fruit is tinned, she notes.
However, tinned varieties can have slightly less fibre and more calories and sugar compared to fresh. For example, 100g of fresh peach typically contains 39 calories, 1.5g of fibre and 7.6g of sugar, while 100g of tinned peaches in fruit juice contains 43 calories, 0.8g of fibre and 9.7g of sugar.
This is mainly a result of the juice or syrup that often comes with tinned fruit, Bardwell explains. “You can get around this by draining and even rinsing the fruit,” she suggests. Alternatively, choose tinned fruit that comes in juice rather than syrup. However, most of the sugar in tinned fruit is naturally occurring, which experts say we don’t necessarily need to cut down on.
Tinned fruit may also contain less vitamin C than fresh, Bardwell notes. This is because vitamin C is degraded by the high temperatures it is exposed to during the canning process. Though, as Professor Gunter Kuhnle, professor of nutrition and food science at the University of Reading, points out, vitamins also degrade over time in fresh fruit. Ultimately, he adds, tinned and fresh fruit are largely comparable.
While fresh berries, apples and oranges all turn squidgy and can grow mouldy when left in a fruit bowl – and often before you have the chance to eat all of what you bought – tinned fruit will remain preserved for years. This should mean less waste, saving you money.
“Tinned fruit is easy, quick, convenient, nutritious, budget-friendly and saves on food waste as it tends to have a long shelf life,” Bardwell says. “It is usually washed, peeled and chopped, making it a time-saving kitchen staple and particularly helpful for people with reduced mobility or those who lack kitchen facilities.”
They’re also cheaper. While a pack of fresh pears can cost £1.70 ($3.85), a punnet of peaches £1.90 ($4.30) and a bag of mandarins £2 ($4.52), in tin form, the price ranges from just 80p ($1.81) to £1.10 ($2.49).
When picking up fresh fruit from the supermarket, it could be days, weeks or even months since the fruit was actually harvested. For example, apples can be kept in fridges for nine months before they are sold in shops.
Tinned fruit, on the other hand, is picked at peak ripeness and then canned in a matter of hours. “They are more ripe, which will have some benefits,” notes Kuhnle. “It retains its nutritional value – and its flavour – unlike fresh fruit which can lose goodness while sitting on shop shelves,” says Bardwell. “Tinned fruit also allows consumers to enjoy fruit when out of season.”
All tinned fruits offer nutrients but one of their main benefits is the fibre they add to our diet, explains Bardwell. We should all be consuming 30g per day to improve our gut health, blood sugar control and also weight management, but the average UK intake is just 18g.
Here, she ranks six popular tinned fruits from most to least healthy, in terms of their fibre content.
1. Prunes
The can that consistently comes out top is a tin of prunes because they have the highest fibre content, with a jar of Waitrose Essential prunes (a supermarket home brand) offering 3.8g per 100g portion.
“Prunes are particularly high in insoluble fibre too,” Bardwell adds. This type of fibre stimulates the gut to release water and mucus to help stool move through the gut.
“It also contains sorbitol, a natural laxative, which can help keep bowel movements regular,” she says. “In addition, prunes have been linked with better bone health.”
2. Peaches
As well as being high in fibre, tinned peaches are also a good source of beta-carotene, explains Kuhnle. This is a pigment that gives peaches their orange colour and the body converts it into vitamin A.
“Opt for the ones in fruit juice or water, rather than syrup to minimise the amount of added sugar consumed,” Bardwell says. “If you can only buy ones in syrup, consider draining and rinsing the fruit to lower the amount of added sugar.”
Waitrose Essential peach halves are a high-fibre option, with 1.9g per 100g serving, while being relatively low in sugar at 10.5g.
3. Pears
Pears contain a decent serving of fibre and Sainsbury’s own brand pear halves are one of the most fibre-dense. Served in fruit juice, it contains 1.4g per 100g serving.
Tinned pears also contain pectin, a type of soluble fibre, which absorbs water from the large bowel, making stools softer.
4. Fruit cocktail
Typically a combination of peaches, pears, pineapple and grapes, fruit cocktail has a middle-of-the-road fibre content, compared to other fruits. The tropical fruit salad from Tesco is one of the highest in fibre, with 1.2g per serving.
5. Pineapple
While delicious, tinned pineapple ranks at the lower end when it comes to fibre. Princes pineapple chunks in juice is one of the options that is highest in fibre (1g per 100g serving) while also being at the lower end in terms of sugar (10g).
Boosting its health profile is bromelain – a group of digestive enzymes found in pineapple. “This can help with the digestion of protein and may even speed up recovery after surgery,” Bardwell says.
6. Mandarins
Mandarins only contain very small amounts of fibre, though the segments in juice from Tesco is one of the lowest in sugar options (7.7g per 100g serving) and has 0.3g of fibre.
However, mandarins are high in vitamin C, Kuhnle points out, which helps with growth and repair of tissues, as well as maintaining healthy skin, blood vessels, bones and cartilage.
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