When choosing apricots, you want to make sure they contain the highest amount of antioxidants and have the best taste: it is therefore advised to eat them during their traditional season, which runs from May through August in the USA. Apricots, in winter, are imported from South America and may have been cultivated and commercialized with less strict requirements.
Fruits with a rich orange color contain more nutrients and have a better taste than those that are pale and yellow.
A common trick to use if you want to check for tree-ripened fruits (which taste much better) consists of feeling the apricot with your hand: a very firm apricot is not tree-ripened, while a slightly soft one probably is.
Apricots can be eaten raw, canned or dried, in their most common forms.
Contrary to popular belief, canned apricots do not lose much of their nutritional properties and can be eaten in large quantities.
Always look for American canned apricots since those imported from other countries may contain toxic compounds released from the metal can.
Dried apricots contain, weight per weight, much more calories, while retaining all of the nutritional properties. This is just a conquence of the lack of water in dried apricots, which makes them much more "concentrated", but they nutritional value is almost the same as raw apricots.
Before eating, fruits should be thoroughly cleaned, since the external peel is somehow porous and tends to retain dirt and dust particles.
Studies conducted at the University of Innsbruck in Austria have proven that as fruits,in general, ripen, their antioxidants levels increase substantially.
The process was explained by lead researcher Bernard Kräutler and his team, who worked in conjunction with botanists for several years. They discovered the first decomposition product in leaves: a colorless, polar nonfluorescing chlorophyll catabolyte (abbreviated as NCC), consisting of four pyrrole rings (like chlorophyll and heme groups in hemoglobin).
This compound seems to gradually replace chlorophyll not only in the leaves, but also in fruits during the ripening process, with higher concentrations in the peel and outer pulp layers.
The consequence is that leaves turn from green to red in autumn (the green color is caused by the presence of chlorophyll).
Quoting the researchers:
When chlorophyll is released from its protein complexes in the decomposition process, it has a phototoxic effect: when irradiated with light, it absorbs energy and can transfer it to other substances. For example, it can transform oxygen into a highly reactive, destructive form," report the researchers. However, NCCs have just the opposite effect. Extremely powerful antioxidants, they play an important protective role for the plant, and when consumed as part of the human diet, NCCs deliver the same potent antioxidant protection within our bodies."