It is healthier to eat frozen vegetables than fresh ones. This is not because freezing makes them more nutritious. In fact, freezing actually causes food to lose some nutrients. Still, frozen vegetables are better for you because crops are usually harvested before they are ripe. Vegetables are at their most nutritious when they are allowed to ripen in the field. However, if they are picked when they are ripe, they would go bad by the time they reached the consumer. That's why they have to be picked early, and allowed to ripen in transit. These fresh vegetables never reach their full nutritional value. On the other hand, vegetables can be picked when they are ripe and then immediately frozen. As a result, frozen vegetables are generally more nutritious than the fresh vegetables we buy at the grocery store.
The above argument is based on which one of the following assumptions?
A. Frozen food companies freeze only the most nutritious kinds of vegetables.
B. Vegetables lose less nutrition from freezing than they do from being picked early.
C. Fresh vegetables are never sold immediately, but rather sit on shelves for a long time.
D. People never freeze the fresh vegetables they buy at the grocery store.
E. All kinds of vegetables ripen at about the same rate in the same amount of time.
