Vitamin cranberry

Cranberry juice, too acidic to be consumed as a 100% juice drink, has been sold since 1929 as cranberry juice cocktail. Juice extraction usually involves pressing the juice from thawed cranberries in a tapered screw press, which affords a 60—64% juice yield. The juice is diluted with two volumes of water and sugar is added to raise the °Brix to 15 to produce a juice cocktail. Under the Federal Food, Dmg and Cosmetic Act, cranberry juice cocktail must contain not less than 25% single-strength cranberry juice with soluble soHds content of 14—16 °Brix, vitamin C content of 30—60 mg/177 mL (6 02), and... 

Elderberries are used medicinally for catarrh, sore throats, fever and asthma. When cooked with a sweetener into a thick syrup known as a rob they offer the same health benefits. Elderberries are excellent in pies, cobblers, jam, chutney, muffins and puddings. Elderberries are rich in vitamin C, calcium, phosphorus and beta-carotene. The berries may be dried and used in winter. Avoid green, unripe berries. The berries should be cooked before eating, remove the seeds when making jam or wine. Elderberry jam is sometimes served as a alternative to cranberry sauce, accompanying turkey or game. 

Many researchers succeeded in demonstrating discernible transient effects of meals on TAC of blood plasma. Consumption of 500 ml of cranberry juice (but not blueberry juice) induced an increase in blood plasma TAC, attaining a maximum after 60-120 min (P5). TAC of elderly women was also increased 0 1 hr after consumption of 240 g of strawberries, 1250 mg of ascorbic acid, or 240 g of raw spinach or drinking 300 ml of red wine. TAC of urine collected over 24 hr was also increased after consumption of vitamin C (by 45%), spinach (by 28%), and strawberries (by 10%) (C13). 

What impresses about blueberry s nutrient profile is that it has a broad range. Almost all essential nutrients are present at low to good levels for achieving daily value percentages—similar to its close cousin, the cranberry. Three nutrients with excellent DV percentages are dietary fiber (mainly from the berry skin), vitamin C, and the essential mineral manganese. The main attraction of blueberries maybe the skin s unique profile of blue-pigmented anthocyanins and resveratrol, two intensively researched scientific topics. 

Kellogg s Special K Blueberry Cereal (specialk.eom/ /products)— provides whole grains with dried blueberry pieces and puree in a cereal fortified with excellent percentages of daily values for dietary fiber, vitamins A, C, and D, six B vitamins, and four essential minerals other superfruits featured are strawberry, raisin, cranberry, and elderberry in cereals or nutrition bars... 

Vitamins C and E, ginger root, green tea, rosemary, cranberry fruit, and grapeseed Green tea extract, sage, Indian hemp, and rosemary... 

In a further case, a patient stabilised on warfarin was found to have INRs of 10 to 12 in the days prior to a surgical procedure, although he had no previous record of an INR greater than 4. Vitamin K was given, and heparin was substituted for warfarin. When warfarin was restarted post-operatively, the INR quickly rose to 8 and then to 11 with haematuria, and postoperative bleeding. The patient was drinking almost 2 litres of cranberry juice daily, because of recurrent urinary tract infections, and was advised to stop drinking this. After three days the INR had stabilised at 3. 

None of these interactions is very well documented, and their clinical relevance is unclear. Note that vitamin K in food commonly interacts with warfarin, and these interactions are discussed in Coumarins and related drugs + Foods Vitamin Kj-rich , p.409. See also cranberry juice , (p.398), enteral and parenteral nutrition , (below), grapefruit juice , (p.411), mango , (p.408) and soya bean products , (p.408). 

Other popular compounds such as lycopene, lutein, resveratrol, quercetin, catechins from tea, grapes, or cranberries, or soy isoflavones have not obtained a favorable opinion, except in cases where they were actually associated with other compounds that had already proven to have an effect like vitamin E or C. 

Recent studies are starting to build evidence that these foods help to improve the antioxidant potential in vivo. For example, Pedersen and associates [51] have shown that consumption of cranberry juice was able to increase the plasma antioxidant capacity of healthy female volunteers, by determining a 30% increase in vitamin C and a small but significant increase in total phenols plasma concentration. 

Raw cranberries are fairly low in calories (46 kcal per 100 g) and carbohydrates (11%). They are a good source of fiber and bioflavonoids, and a fair source of potassium and vitamin C. Hence, they may be sweetened with an artificial sweetener and used in various low calorie dishes. 

Most types of cranberry juice drinks are sweetened with caloric sweeteners and fortified with added vitamin C. Hence, they are likely to contain moderate amounts of calories (about 60 kcal per 31/2 oz [100 gj) and carbohydrates (about 15%), and to be good sources of vitamin C. It is noteworthy that artificially sweetened cranberry drinks and unsweetened juices are available which contain only about 1/4 of the calories and carbohydrates of the beverages that contain added caloric sweetener(s). 

In general, fats derived from animal sources (e.g. butter and lard see Table 1) contain much less vitamin E than fats from plant sources (e.g. soybean oil and com oil). Coconut oil is an exception among the plant oils in that it contains very little vitamin E. In addition, animal fats (see Tables 1 and 4) contain primarily a-tocopherol, whereas plant fats (see Tables 1-3) often contain high levels of non-a-tocopherols such as y- or 5-tocopherol. Butter, for example, contains about 2 mg a-tocopherol per 100 g and only trace amounts of other tocopherols (Tomasch et al., 2001). In contrast, com oil contains 11 mg a-tocopherol and 60 mg y-tocopherol per 100 g. Some plant oils contain significant quantities of tocotrienols. Cranberry seed oil is the richest known source of tocotrienols, containing 173 mg/100 g (Nawar, 2001). These differences in the levels and types of vitamin E in animal fats versus plant fats may have profound... 

The DPPH assay (5) was used to evaluate the free-radical-scavenging capacity of extracts prepared by the methods outlined above, whole berry extract and commercial cranberry juice cocktail (Ocean Spray Inc.). Activity was compared to that of a standard antioxidant (Vitamin E, Aldrich Chemical Co.) measured using the same methods. Varying concentrations of cranberry extracts were mixed with a 60 pM solution of DPPH in methanol. Quenching of the violet DPPH radical was observed as a decrease in absorbance at 515 nm over one hour. EC50 values are measured as the sample concentration required to decrease DPPH absorption by 50%. Results are shown in Table I. The DPPH assay was also used to evaluate the extracts of peel, solids and juice EC50 values are reported in Table V. 

Table I shows the results of a DPPH radical-scavenging assay on each of the whole-cranberry extracts prepared by Mediods 1 and 2. For whole cranberries, the highest antioxidant activity was observed in ethyl acetate extracts prepared by both methods, with an IC50 value of 0.033 mg/mL for the ethyl acetate extract prepared by Method 2. The ethyl acetate fraction was about twice as effective at radical scavenging as the whole-berry extract (IC50 = 0.078 mg/mL). Kinetics of these reactions were slow compared to the standard. Vitamin E for all cranberry extracts, radical scavenging occurred over a period of approximately one hour as compared to several minutes for vitamin E.

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