Also reported in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, room temperature watermelons also deliver more nutrients than freshly picked watermelons.
Penelope Perkins-Veazie and Julie Collins of the USDA's South Central Agricultural Research Laboratory in Lane, Oklahoma tested several popular varieties of watermelon at different temperatures for 14 days.
Watermelons stored at 70 degrees Fahrenheit had the most nutrients of the watermelons.
Even compared to freshly picked watermelons, the room temperature watermelons had 40 percent more lycopene, which may help prevent heart disease, and 50 percent to 139 percent more beta-carotene, which the body converts to Vitamin A.
They also noted in their report that watermelons stored at 41 degrees Fahrenheit begin to decay after a week.
