the story of an orange

A moving story, sent to us by our friend Stuart.

originally from this site, we think

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.

carrot panpipes

Dan has introduced us to the vegetable orchestra before. Now let us show you the unique talents of heita3 (possibly not his real name we presume?). Seems suitably strange for a Friday.

He can also do Broccoli Ocarina, Cabbage slide flute and Apple Ocarina.

how do you like them bananas

Top bananas at a Rainforest Alliance credited farm we visited.

Bananas are hands down the worlds most popular fruit. They are the most important food crop after rice, wheat and maize. That's a pretty important role to play.

Seeing as bananas are so important, and that we use them as an ingredient in all of our smoothies, we like to make sure we choose exactly the right ones. That not only means choosing the freshest, best quality and best tasting yellow fellows, we also insist that they are all sourced to highest possible ethical standards.

That's why we only use Rainforest Alliance certified bananas found with the help of our friend Carlos.

In order to be credited by the Rainforest Alliance banana growers have to meet a set of important ethical standards which are put in place to help protect communities and the environment. They then get to use the below stamp and become a potential innocent smoothie banana.

All of this means that you can rest assured that the bananas in your smoothie are helping to protect workers rights and the local environment where they are produced. Not to mention they're damn tasty and good for you.

how do you make a smoothie innocent?

We're back on the telly again this month (as we hinted a few weeks ago) with our new ad 'how do you make a smoothie innocent?'

You can watch it above or watch it here if you'd prefer to see it a bit bigger and a bit better quality. It's all about our drinks and what makes them special (the fruit and the fine people who help us to find our ingredients and create our smoothies, in case you were wondering).

This version stars our friend Carlos from the Rainforest Alliance who has been helping us to find more and more Rainforest Alliance certified fruit, including bananas, pineapples and oranges. You can find out a bit more about how we work with the Rainforest Alliance here if you like.

We hope you like the ad. Let us know what you think if you have a second to spare.

the origami of fruit

We hid a little pdf at the bottom of the FAQ bit of our French website. It detailed the art of making a strawberry, using only the power of origami, and challenged someone to have a go at making it.

Cue Océane and Valerie, who not only made a couple of the little fellows, but went out and bought some huge pieces of paper to create a giant strawberry.

Merci beaucoup Océane et Valerie pour les fraises du papier, and apologies for our appalling French.

And one more thing – Océane and Valerie challenge you to make a bigger one. Something to do over the Christmas holidays...

climbing to new heights

There was a bit in Sunday's Observer Food Monthly on our acai farmers in the Brazilian Amazon.

Photos by courtesy of Gary Calton/ eyevine. Great shot Gary, thanks.

All of the acai berries that we use in our smoothies are grown sustainably from palms native to the Amazon estuary. These palms only grow within 25 yards of the Amazon in the mineral-rich tidal wetlands, meaning that they're naturally irrigated twice a day. What's more, our acai supplier is certified as organic, and is working with the acai collectors to preserve biodiversity, address social issues such as adequate nutrition and develop other sustainable local industries, such as making jewellery made from acai seeds.

The acai berries are collected by scaling the acai tree using hemp tape looped around the climber's ankles to give a good grip.

It's easier said than done though, as Rich found out.

"Just crop the photo below my feet and it will look like I nearly got to the top."

The berries are then threshed from the branch, and placed in baskets for transportation.

If you fancy trying a whole 35 of these hand picked, antioxidant rich acai berries from the banks of the world's biggest river, then why not have a go on our detox superfoods smoothie.

 

the banana that didn't bend

Adam is cross. The banana protecting device that he bought wasn't the right shape for his banana. But watch out. You won't like him when he's angry.

up close and personal with fruit

See if you can watch this for more than 60 seconds without smiling.

(We didn't make it ourselves so can't vouch for all the facts and figures within it, especially the claims about pineapple being good on pizza with ham).