so long to icy chilled watermelon?

MONDAY, July 31 (HealthDay News) -- For many people, nothing is better on a hot day than biting into an ice-cold slice of watermelon. But scientists now say the juicy summer fruit is most nutritious when stored and served at room temperature.

Reporting in the Aug. 9 issue of the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, the researchers based their premise on a tally that compared the levels of key antioxidants in whole watermelons that were either refrigerated or stored at room temperature for two weeks.

"What we found was very surprising," said study author Penelope Perkins-Veazie, a plant physiologist at the South Central Agricultural Research Laboratory with the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Lane, Okla. "The amount of lycopene in watermelons went up about an average of 20 percent when we left them out uncut at room temperature, while beta carotene actually doubled," she said.