High-power blender nutrition claims

[Fat Guy]

The high-power blender brands (Vita-Mix, Blendtec, Waring X-treme, et al.) generally make the claim that high-power blenders, by breaking down the cell walls of produce, "enhance the bioavailability of essential nutrients in fruits and vegetables." (In the words of the Vita-Mix website.) The people doing the demos in stores are even more emphatic in their claims: It's impossible to digest and extract the nutrients from X, but if you put it in the high-power blender you get all the nutrients and micronutrients.

True or false?

[haresfur]

Hmm, how well do you chew your food?

[Jenni]

It is true that many vegetables are actually more nutritious lightly cooked than raw, because this breaks down the cell wall structure and allows the body to get at the nutrients. So in theory, I guess it could be true that blending vegetables does a similar thing.

[Chris Hennes]

Even if true, I wonder if it matters. If you ate exactly the same quantity of fruit/vegetable unblended, I bet you would still get all the nutrients you need for the day. With most (all?) vitamins and minerals I am aware of, there is no benefit to getting more than your body actually needs, so even if they are "bioavailable" you still won't use them.

[offcentre]

It is true that many vegetables are actually more nutritious lightly cooked than raw, because this breaks down the cell wall structure and allows the body to get at the nutrients. So in theory, I guess it could be true that blending vegetables does a similar thing.

Can you (or anyone) point to evidence to support this. Just interested, I know a raw foodie or two who would be interested.

ta

[andiesenji]

While I love my Vita Mix and have been using them for 40 years, I'm not convinced that processing raw foods makes any nutrients more available.

If someone has poor dentition, can't chew properly or has other problems, I can see that digestion might be helped by more break down of the foods.

Certainly there are nutrients that are lost in prolonged cooking.

I take all these claims with a grain (or more) of salt. I know many vegans and somewhat rabid vegetarians who are emphatic about the claims but I don't notice that they are a great deal healthier than anyone else who eats a balanced diet.

That being said, I think the high powered blenders certainly do a better job and there is no question that they outlast the less powerful types by a huge factor.

The initial outlay is significant but if you have to replace the cheaper ones often, you end up paying more in the long run.

[infernooo]

I would also imagine breaking the cell walls would expose many of the elements inside to oxidation... so unless it is consumed straight away, this could be considered a positive or a negative.

[Porthos]

I'm a South Beach Diet devotee. Accordingly I see "pre-digesting" food in a blender as inherently bad since it passes out of the stomach too quickly. Just my take on it ... YMMV.

[Mr_fuzzer]

It is true that many vegetables are actually more nutritious lightly cooked than raw, because this breaks down the cell wall structure and allows the body to get at the nutrients. So in theory, I guess it could be true that blending vegetables does a similar thing.

Can you (or anyone) point to evidence to support this. Just interested, I know a raw foodie or two who would be interested.

ta

I cant comment on the blender, however i remembered reading a study from England studying the effects of the raw veggie diet.

I don´t quite remember the result but it was quite varied. The only link i found to that study was sadly dead so here are a few other studies i found regarding this subject.

While searching though i found this on Pubmed. Its kind of strange.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19083456

Then upon further research i found this.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf072304b?prevSearch=boiling+frying+steaming&searchHistoryKey=

I cant really draw any conclusions but it seems that if its generally nutrients you are after then some kind of cooking is the way to go.

Quite frankly it might depend on what you want, i don´t really think its going to make a big difference either way though.

When looking around on the raw food sites i found mostly un testable claims like - The life essence of the carrot is lost while cooking it, that´s not something i can address as its not an observed thing.

I saw a man talking about enzymes, they were talking about scary things like a cure for cancer and boosting the immune system. Things that they have no way to back up. Its also very dangerous.

Of course these were the scariest parts. Most people just claimed it was "Better" and did not really quantify it more than that.

Thanks for your time and i hope this helped.