The perfect fruit juice?

One of the benefits I have noticed since becoming a blogger is that I tend to keep my eyes open for interesting things to blog about. Autism is obviously the focus of this blog and is a rich source of research and practice. But around the various research that is published and lands in my in-box, little nuggets appear every now and again which whilst being outside of the core focus, are nevertheless of potential interest.

One such nugget was this paper which describes the science behind the perfect fruit juice. The team, based at the University of Strasburg aimed to create a berry fruit juice that could lower the risk of cardiovascular disease based on maximising polyphenol content. Polyphenols have a rich history related to health; particularly their correlation (not necessarily causation) with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease via antioxidant activity and vasodilation.

According to the press release from the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), after quite a bit of work, the team pronounced the following blend to be that which maximised vasodilation as well as tasting not too bad: a base of grape juice (63% of the total drink volume) blended with strawberry (10%), blueberry (10%), apple (10%), lingonberry (5%), acerola (4%) and aronia (4%).

So the next time you are at the juice bar and the server asks 'what's your poison?' make sure you make yours the healthiest kind.