cron-web.org

[MR]

A cronie noted:

http://www.nutrifruit.com/docs/jafc2.pdf

> > Anyone familiar with these products? This seems a convenient and efficient
> > way to get even more of the benefits of the healthiest berries into the diet
> > the year round.
> >
> > Do you think the nutrition and ORAC is preserved in these products?
> >

I've posted a few times that ORAC is a physiologically meaningless assay. I
did one very detailed post on this which I can't seem to find in the archives;
to quote from one that's second-best:

"I've often ranted about people citing ORAC and other test-tube measures
of alleged antioxidant capacity to draw conclusions about the health
value of various foods. In brief, the 2 biggest issues are that (1)
becaue different kinds of antioxidants quench different kinds of
radicals, any existing measure of 'antioxidant capacity' can only
represent a narrow range of a given substance's antioxidant effects; [ORAC
only measures phenolic antioxidant donor capacity. So for example, gamma
tocopherol has a much lower ORAC than alpha, which against SOME ROS (say,
hydroxyl radical) is an accurate assay of their relative potency -- but gamma
is much more powerful against peroxynitrite and other nitrogen-based "free
radicals," and ORAC totally misses this. It also can't account for teh
compartmentalization & distribution of specific antioxidant molecules: whether
they work in the fluids of the body or in the membranes, whether they can be
transported actively into various key compartments or are only able to
dissolve & diffuse, etc]; and (2) because of different absorption & metabolism
of various antioxidant compounds (esp phenolics [which are the antioxidants
whose value is always put in the most impressive light by ORAC and in which
fruit is rich]), something can have gangbuster antioxidant activity in a test
tube & be irrelevant in vivo because the compound in the food just doesn't get
into your system. (There is also the whole question of whether something's
simply being an antioxidant actually constitutes a health benefit)."

More, and a good example, here: http://lists.calorierestriction.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0405&L=crsociety&P=R21302

A cyanide salad dressing would be high-ORAC. That doesn't mean that it's
healthy.