Dee Woods: Kiwi full of taste, antioxidants

Mixing it up for good health
By Dee Woods

Question: What delicious fruit is actually from the berry family and considered to be one of the most nutritious and wholesome foods?

I didn’t know the answer until recently, so I suspect many of you may not. This wonderful fruit is known as the kiwifruit. I’ve only been hooked on it from the first time I tried it about 10 years ago and I had no idea of the wealth of benefits of this beautiful tasty, once rare, treat. It’s probably one of the very few foods I know of that is good for you and tastes scrumptious at the same time. The only downside was its cost.

The good news is that not only is it exceptionally nutritious, but it is in season from November to May. Many of them come from New Zealand and California is now beginning to grow them. It was originally imported into New Zealand because of its beauty. The plant itself looks ornamental and the fruit has a hair-like fuzzy texture with a gorgeous multi-green fruit within. I use it as a garnish on my fruit salads and watermelon bowls.
Kiwifruit is actually from the berry family, although it’s quite a large fruit. Naturally, because berries contain so many antioxidants, the kiwifruit is exceptionally healthful.

Kiwifruit holds so many vitamins and minerals, it nutritionally resembles a vegetable more so than a fruit. When I purchased my first fruit, it was about $2 a piece. Now that they are growing more abundantly in the California area, the price has come down quite a bit and the growing season may expand.

Kiwifruit has soft, digestible seeds that contain tremendous nutrients. They even enhance the taste. Because the fruit is larger than berries, the plentiful seeds naturally contain many hundreds of times the antioxidants of other berries. In fact, small studies in Taiwan and Norway showed the small fruit, when eaten twice daily, reduced bad cholesterol and increased good cholesterol. The Norwegian study showed kiwifruit reduces triglycerides. Even the skin contains nutrients, but I haven’t been able to eat that just yet.

I ate it because I loved the taste, but now I’ll eat more because of the nutrition too.

That brings me to the recent FDA attacks on the large pomegranate company, Pom Wonderful. When I heard about the government coming down on the company, I went back and looked at the studies. Yep, the studies were legitimate and initially came from the National Academy of the Sciences, among others.

Everything I wrote about the benefits of pomegranate were correct. It seems that no company has the right to make such health claims about foods and put those claims on labels. The only people who can make such claims are FDA approved pharmaceuticals that can be advertised on television. You know, those drugs like Avandia, Fosamax and the others that are now coming under scrutiny because they apparently have caused harm to a number of patients.

So, drink that pomegranate juice and eat kiwi fruit. They are both exceptionally excellent sources of nutrition that offer tremendous health benefits that companies can’t advertise.

Dee Woods is available to give presentations about alternative health treatments and healthy living. She can be reached at deewoods@comcast.net.

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Free the Free Radicals | Green Tea and Pomegranate

Study finds that sorghum bran has more antioxidants than blueberries, pomegranates

A new University of Georgia study has found that select varieties of sorghum bran have greater antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties than well-known foods such as blueberries and pomegranates. Researchers measured polyphenolic compounds, which naturally occur in plants to help fight against pests and disease, and found that the black and sumac varieties of sorghum have significant levels of antioxidants. Many fruits also contain these compounds, they said, though sorghum bran may prove to be the richest and cheapest source.

"Since most human chronic disease states are associated with chronic inflammation and high oxidative stress, a food ingredient such as sorghum bran could potentially make certain processed foods better for a healthy diet," said study co-author Diane Hartle, director of the UGA Nutraceutical Research Laboratory and an associate professor in the College of Pharmacy.

Hartle and her colleagues, whose results appear in the current issue of the Journal of Medicinal Food, measured the degree to which extracts from four different varieties of sorghum reduced inflammation in mice. They found that black and sumac varieties showed significantly higher levels of polyphenolic content and antioxidant levels than the two low-tannin varieties tested, which did not reduce inflammation.

The authors found that levels of polyphenolic compounds in the high-tannin sorghum varieties ranged from 23 to 62 mg of polyphenols per gram. For comparison, blueberries contain approximately 5 mg of polyphenolics per gram, while pomegranate juice contains 2 to 3.5 mg per gram.

The U.S. is the largest producer of sorghum in the world. Most of the sorghum grown, however, is a low-tannin variety that is fed to cattle and poultry or used to manufacture ethanol to fuel cars. "High-tannin sorghums can be of greater economy to manufacturers because of the current cost of berry and fruit sources of similar plant-based chemicals," said study co-author Phillip Greenspan, associate professor in the UGA College of Pharmacy.

High-tannin sorghum bran products have not been available in supermarket foods until recently. The researchers said they hope to generate interest in sorghum bran or its extract as an additive to food and beverages. Sorghum bran extract could be added to a variety of foods and beverages as a liquid concentrate or dried powder. The Great Plains area of the U.S. is the largest worldwide producer of sorghum, and the researchers said that the combination of its low price and high antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties will make it widely useful as an inexpensive and nutritional food additive.

The researchers have already experimented with adding the extract to apple juice to make it an affordable alternative to pomegranate juice and other antioxidant-rich products. "We're hoping that some company decides to extract this bran and pull these chemicals out and put the extract into a beverage that can help you fight disease rather than promote disease," Hartle said.

Study co-author James Hargrove, associate professor in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences, added that high-tannin sorghum has more antioxidant phytochemicals than other brans such as rice, wheat and oats, whose phenolic content and antioxidant values are low. He and Hartle said that the use of sorghum can become a way to reintroduce a quality food to many products that now use bleached, refined flour.

"Sorghum bran not only provides the fiber but gives you a real medicinal punch at the same time because it delivers a lot of other chemicals that a berry would give you," Hartle said.

Source: University of Georgia

Green Tea And Pomegranate - How These Topical Antioxidants Protect Your Skin From Sun Damage

It is well-known that chronic exposure to ultraviolet light found in sunlight leads to photoaging. Photoaging of the skin refers to the loss of tone, wrinkling, discoloration, increased redness, and the development of skin cancer, even melanoma. There is good evidence that UV radiation induces the production of reactive oxygen species, otherwise known as oxygen free-radicals, which can overwhelm the skin's natural anti-oxidant defenses. These reactive oxygen species go on to damage proteins, cell membranes, and other macromolecules. The damage to lipids, proteins, and DNA in skin cells can build up over time and become evident as photoaging. The extracellular matrix which contains collagen and elastin also sustains cumulative damage that contributes to photoaging.

Green tea has recently garnered a lot of attention for the antioxidant polyphenols that it contains. Both oral and topical administration of green tea polyphenols in human and mouse experimental models has shown their ability to prevent signs of ultraviolet-induced damage. Green tea has even been shown to inhibit and reverse the formation of skin cancers in mice subjected to ultraviolet photodamage.

Topical treatment of human skin with green tea polyphenols has been shown to prevent the DNA damage that leads to skin cancer. Clearly, green tea is a powerful anti-oxidant, and there is good evidence to support its use in the general population to help prevent photoaging and to decrease the risk of skin cancer.

Pomegranate has entered the scene a little more recently but has generated explosive interest. The juice and peels contain powerful antioxidants, anthocyanins, a group of polyphenolic compounds that possess antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. In a comparative analysis, anthocyanins from pomegranate fruit were shown to possess higher antioxidant activity than vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol), ascorbic acid, and ß-carotene. Experiments in mouse models have shown that topical pre-treatment with pomegranate polyphenols prevented the molecular signs of ultraviolet-induced photodamage leading to skin cancer. Although green tea polyphenols have a head-start on
pomegranate, the amount of research generated by pomegranate in the last 10 years has skyrocketed.

More information related to prevention of cancer and cardiovascular disease by pomegranate is likely to be published in the near future.

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ORAC Values of Acai Berry, Goji Berry, Pomegranate and Mangosteen

ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) is a measure of how well antioxidants absorb free radicals. Superfruits such as the Acai berry, Goji Berry, Pomegranate and Mangosteen has quite high ORAC values. The USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) ARS (Agricultural Research Service) in their 2007 ORAC values for selected foods has not provided data for these superfruits aside from pomegranate juice which scores 2,341.
To achieve optimum health, USDA recommends an intake of 5,000 ORAC units per day. Daily food consumption for an average person attains only about 20% to 30% of this recommendation. This means a lot more of foods with good ORAC scores like fruits and vegetables must be included in one's daily food intake.
Approximate ORAC scores taken other research institutions like Tufts University and manufacturers of superfruits has come up with the following data:

Superfruit- 1 gram	ORAC Value
Acai Berry	3,800
Pomegranate	105
Goji Berry	253
Mangosteen	>3,000

Although fruits high in ORAC value gives a lot of antioxidant benefit for the body, the combination of other nutrients and vitamins contained in these fruits raises the overall benefit it gives to our body.

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• Related Acai berry posts:

• Understanding Acais Antioxidants

• Benefits of Acai Berry Juice and Freeze Dried Powder 

• ORAC values of Acai Berry, Goji Berry, Pomegranate and Mangosteen

• Anthocyanin Antioxidants in the Acai Berry

• Acai Berry Drink

• Other links
  
  • What is ORAC value

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Punicalagin Antioxidants in Pomegranate

Antioxidants in Pomegranate

Punicalagins, a tannin, are the major antioxidant components of pomegranate. Other antioxidant present in the pomegranate fruit are anthocyanins(responsible for the color both inside and outside of the fruit), ellagitannins, and hydrolyzed tannins. This is how the fruit became popular and has come to be one of the so called superfuits or superfoods because of its health benefits.

The fruit is about 2.5" to 5" in diameter, roundish, and is riddled with many seeds inside. The flesh covering the seeds are edible. The color is green outside when raw but turns to a bright attractive red when fully ripe. The taste is semi sweet and semi sour.

Because of its antioxidant power, many manufacturers have produced juices, extracts and other health beneficial products from this fruit. Many studies have been done in testing the antioxidant capacity of punicalagins and anthocyanin together with other antioxidants found in pomegranate. The following is a list of some observations that were made.

• inhibits the proliferation of human cancer cells - lung, prostate, etc.
• it has anti-microbial properties - anti-viral, anti-fungs, etc.
• helps in the reduction of LDL cholesterol to make the body's cardiovascular system healthy
• lessens the effect of menopause
• inhibits atherosclerosis

Different fruits, different antioxidants

The major antioxidant player in pomegrante is punicalagin, anthocyanin in acai, carotenoids in goji berry and xanthones in mangosteen. Other fruits for sure have different antioxidant contents. Each antioxidant has its own special interaction with the chemicals and cells in our body. Some antioxidants fat(lipophyllic) soluble and others are water(hydrophyllic) soluble.

Why do the antioxidants in fruit differ? Maybe its a hint we can gain from nature that it is best to eat a variety of fruits and not limit ourselves to a few to gain maximum benefit for our body. Thanks to science, these antioxidants have been identified and experimented with.

Not all these fruits are available in our locality. Thanks to the manufacturers who have produced juices, extracts and supplements from these fruits for they have made available the antioxidant health benefits specific for each fruit to other countries.

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Similar posts

Antioxidants in Juices
Anthocyanin Antioxidants in the Acai Berry
Xanthones Antioxidants in the Mangosteen Super Fruit
Antioxidants in the Goji Berry

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