Don’t settle for half-baked polyphenol protection

You know how much I love blueberries.

They’re low in sugar. They’re packed with antioxidant-rich polyphenols. And research shows that they can take on everything from Alzheimer’s to heart disease.

But does that make a blueberry muffin healthy? Of course not.

As far as I’m concerned, if you’re going to have a muffin, you might as well eat a piece of cake for breakfast. And not even the blueberries can redeem it. Research shows that the blueberries themselves may be less potent after baking.

In fact, the results of a recent study indicated that the baking process lowers wild blueberries’ levels of anthocyanin–the same antioxidant-rich flavonoid that gives them their distinct deep blue color–by as much as 21 percent.

Bottom line? Don’t kid yourself. There’s nothing healthy about that blueberry muffin, scone, or slice of blueberry pie.

But then, you already knew that.

Source:
“Impact of Cooking, Proving, and Baking on the (Poly)phenol Content of Wild Blueberry” J Agric Food Chem. 2013 Oct 25.


CLOSE
CLOSE