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STRAWBERRIES could be even better for you in years to come.

A team at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland blew air laced with extra carbon dioxide over strawberry plots. They found tripling CO₂ levels significantly increased the fruit’s vitamin C content and doubled levels of glutathione, another antioxidant. Both mop up free radicals, which damage DNA in cells.

Plant scientist James Bunce says that plants may find making the compounds “energetically expensive”, so the extra CO₂ may let them photosynthesise fast enough to produce larger amounts.

This is the first time strawberries grown in otherwise natural…