smoothies are twice as good as we thought

It isn't often that smoothies hit the front pages of the national newspapers. So we were very excited to see some research that we'd been involved with appearing on the front pages of the Telegraph today. A very sensible and clever nutritionist called Dr Carrie Ruxton has done some extensive research into the world of smoothies. And it is her view that the government should review its guidelines and declare them as two portions. Hence the twice as good headline.

We won't copy out her full research paper here because it's quite long, but here are some of her conclusions. All of which seem very sensible to us.

"The steady growth of smoothies in the chilled juice market creates an opportunity to help more consumers achieve the 5-a-day target. This could be made easier if smoothies were designated as two portions of fruit, rather than being lumped together with juices as just one portion. Smoothies are significantly higher in fibre, vitamin C and antioxidants than juices and meet the criteria to make a labelling claim for fibre content. Smoothie recipes contain at least one 80g portion of mashed fruit plus a portion of juice, and are nutritionally equivalent to two portions of fruit.The sugar content of smoothies is no greater than the fruit in its original form. In conclusion, the nutritional benefits offered by smoothies far outweigh any risks, and a re-evaluation of the 5-a-day criteria is justified."

Dr Shilpee has been in to see the Department of Health and Food Standards Agency a few times, and hopefully this latest research will help them to review the current guidelines and help more people hit their five a day target.

world's biggest seed library

This place opened up in Norway last week

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault will be home to millions of different seed samples from all over the world to make sure that we can still grow all these plants should a natural disaster, plant disease or asteroid ever wipe them out.

It's good to know someone is thinking ahead.

last night

If you were watching telly last night and giving Hotel Babylon a miss, you might have seen something on the other side about the way that companies make claims about products. Professor Regan from BBC2's Horizon came into Fruit Towers to talk to us about our superfoods range and investigate the science behind the word 'superfood'.

We had a good chat with the Professor, and put forward our point of view, which is that all fruit and veg is amazing, and that there are certain fruits that have extra, measurable benefits, and they are the ones that we call super. Professor Regan’s opinion was that the fruits we call 'super' are nutritious, good for you and should be eaten, but there was no empirical evidence to support the name 'superfood'. We also went on to say that whilst people still don't understand exactly how and why fruit is so amazing (because the scientific research in this area is all quite new), one thing is clear: fruit and veg is good for you, and we should all eat more. And everyone, from the World Health Organisation to Professor Regan to us, agrees on that.

If you did miss Hotel Babylon, Alan Davies played a celebrity chef called Otto Clark and there was a joke featuring a lobster.

is fruit good for you?

We’ve always thought that fruit is pretty good for you. Some other people think so too (these people and these people), but today's Guardian G2 isn’t so sure.

They’ve written an article challenging whether fruit is really that good for you. One of their experts has been quoted saying "it’s a myth that fruit is packed full of vitamins and minerals", which is quite surprising. It’s not like we’re brilliant at eating fruit in the first place - a recent survey by the Food Standards Agency reported that 83% of us aren't eating the recommended five portions of fruit and veg a day: most adults just about manage two.

Dr Shilpee , our nutritionist, has this to say on the subject: "For the past couple of years, the government has been pulling out all the stops to encourage us to eat our five portions of fruit and veg a day, to make sure that we stay fit and healthy. And to make it even easier, it doesn’t need to be fresh fruit or veg, it can be frozen, crushed, juiced, dried or canned. I hope this article doesn’t mislead people into believing that fruit is bad for you. It’s packed with antioxidants, dietary fibre, phytonutrients and is an integral part of a health diet and lifestyle; not only does fruit taste great, it has a low GI which means that it will keep you feeling fuller for longer and perhaps stop you becoming too friendly with the biscuit tin."

We definitely think that people need to think carefully about what they eat. Everyone’s got to weigh up the pros and cons of all the foods they consume and work out the right balance for them. But we don’t feel that becoming suspicious about fruit is going to help our nation become healthier. And we hope this one article won’t discourage people from doing what the government reckons is the second best thing for your health after giving up smoking: getting your five a day.

a thousand words

Air freighting food is a bit dumb. We don't air freight any of our ingredients, and we thought that this illustration, which we came across the other day, explained it better than we ever could.

save our vegetables

The world's vegetables need your help. Traditional varieties are dying out, but never fear – you can save them. Simply adopt a vegetable at the Heritage Seed Library.

We've adopted a tomato called Texas Wild. Something about the name just made us think of cowboys and riding off into the sunset. But please don't let this be your motivation for adopting a rare variety. There aren't that many cowboy-themed veg varieties on the list.

You could choose the Walla Walla Sweet (onion), the Long Green Buddha (pepper) or the Lazy Housewife (climbing French bean). At £15, it's a snip.

how many portions of fruit in a smoothie?

Hello. My name is Shilpee and I'm the company nutritionist at innocent. Firstly, I'd like to say we are sorry if people have been confused by anything we've said about our drinks. Our intention is always to try and keep things clear and simple, and we definitely don't want to mislead anyone about the nutrition of our smoothies.

According to the Department of Health...

150ml juice = one portion

80g fruit = one portion

Our smoothies all contain these amounts of both juice and crushed fruit, and therefore we are confident that they contain 2 portions. Professor Millward (who heads up nutrition at the University of Surrey, and helped set up the five a day programme for the government) double checks all the claims we make, and he says "because of the juice and whole crushed fruit content, 250ml of our smoothies counts as two portions."

We've been talking to the Department of Health about this. They broadly agree from a regulatory point of view that an innocent smoothie has two portions of fruit in it. They originally stated that a glass of JUICE counted as one portion as they were concerned if people only drank juice they wouldn't be getting the fibre of the fruit. Whereas a fruit SMOOTHIE contains crushed whole fruit that brings with it the fibre, antioxidants and vitamins you'd find in whole fruit, and so is nutritionally different from juice.

In April, new guidelines on portions in 'composite' foods will be issued. The Department of Health is considering evidence about foods such as smoothies to see how many portions they can claim in the future. Lots of these foods weren't around when they first made the recommendations about what counts as a portion and we expect that the new guidelines that will include portion recommendations for smoothies specifically.

Until then please be assured that all our smoothies contain nothing but fruit and a variety of it in both juice and whole crushed form.

Thanks.

Shilpee

giving them away

Hello to the folks in Newby (Scarborough) who we sent some drinks to recently. We said we'd post your pictures here, so we have.

We met these Yorkshire folk via some work we've been doing with School Friend, the largest charitable provider of childcare in the UK. Over 75% of their clubs are run in deprived areas and they're trying to improve the diet of the children in these areas by offering them a healthy eating programme. Hopefully our kids smoothies are helping a bit.

banning air freighted food?

Interesting story brewing about air freighted food (read more here). It's probably worth saying at this point that we don't air freight our ingredients.

And now it's time to enjoy the rest of the damp and drizzly Bank Holiday Monday. Whoopee.

Photo by Ann Cantelow. Thanks Ann.

an article about organic farming

An interesting article about organic food and farming in the UK. Here.