The Right Combo: Getting The Most Health Benefits From Fruit Smoothies

Smoothies can be a delicious and convenient way to get the essential fruits and vegetables for a healthy diet. But is a banana and blueberry smoothie the best? Researchers from the University of California, Davis suggest that mixing certain ingredients in a shake can affect the body's ability to absorb nutrients.

The study, published today in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Journal of Food and Function, used cocktails to test how the enzyme polyphenol oxidase found in various fruits and vegetables affects the amount of dietary flavanols absorbed by the body. body. Flavonols are a group of bioactive compounds important for your heart and cognitive health and are found naturally in apples, pears, blueberries, blackberries, grapes and cocoa – popular sweeteners.

“We wanted to understand how, from a very practical perspective, common foods like banana smoothies and cooking affect the availability of flavanols that you drink after eating,” said Javier Ataviani, director of Mars Edge. . Core Lab, affiliated with Mars, Inc. Body, research assistant in the Department of Nutrition at the University of California, Davis.

Cut an apple or banana peel and the fruit will brown quickly. This is due to polyphenol oxide, or PPO, an enzyme found naturally in these foods. Browning occurs when foods containing this enzyme are exposed to air, cuts or cuts. The researchers wanted to know if drinking cold soft drinks with different fruits containing PPO affected the level of flavanols in the body.

The researchers asked the participants to drink a smoothie made from bananas and berries, which naturally contain high PPO activity. Participants took a flavanol capsule as a control. After taking samples of soft and soft capsules, blood and urine samples were analyzed to determine the amount of flavanols present in the body. The researchers found that those who drank the banana shake had 84% lower levels of flavanols in their bodies than the control group.

"We were surprised how quickly adding bananas reduced the amount of flavonols in the shake and how much flavonols were absorbed by the body," Attiviani said. "This indicates that the preparation and combination of foods can affect the absorption of nutrients from foods."

Last year, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics released dietary guidelines recommending people consume 400 to 600 milligrams of flavanols daily for heart and metabolic health. People trying to consume these flavanols, Ataviani says, should consider making a smoothie by combining flavanol-rich fruits like berries with other active PPO ingredients like pineapple, orange, mango or yogurt.

He also said that bananas remain a great fruit to eat or use in smoothies. It is not recommended to combine soft drinks containing bananas or other fruits and vegetables with high PPO activity, such as beet greens, with fruits rich in flavonols such as berries, grapes and cocoa.

The results of this study may inspire future research into how other foods are prepared and their effect on flavanols. For example, Ataviani claims that tea is an important dietary source of flavanols, and depending on how it is prepared, different amounts of flavanols are available for absorption.

"This is definitely an area that deserves more attention in the field of polyphenols and bioactive compounds in general," Ataviani said.

Judy Ensonza, Raymond Fong, Jennifer Kimball, and Alan Crozier, all of the Department of Nutrition at the University of California Davis, and researchers affiliated with the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of California, Davis, University of Reading, King Saud University and March. Contribute to research.

The study was supported by support from Mars, which has worked with researchers to study the potential health benefits of cocoa flavanols in humans.

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