Eat To Live: Purple grape juice healthiest

EDINBURGH, Scotland, March 19 (UPI) -- Spring hasn't come yet to Edinburgh, where the winds howl around the Castle. Still, workers lunch outside in the weak sunshine at the sandwich shops, which are now as much a part of British cityscapes as the Starbucks on every street corner.

They offer high-end fillings like crayfish-and-rocket (arugula), Thai chicken salad and All Day Breakfast -- options their ham-and-cheese or egg-salad forebears wouldn't recognize. But Scots are washing sandwiches down less often with coffee than with fruit-juice concoctions that cost almost as much as the sandwich.

These juices are big business in Britain, with annual sales worth $5.8 billion. Consumption of the annual 2.2 billion liters works out to 36 liters a person a year. The attraction, aside from taste, must be the still-inconclusive health claims many of them now make on their packaging.

According to a study just published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, juices may indeed be giving health a big boost. But which make the healthiest choice may come as a surprise.

Researchers from the Human Nutrition group at Glasgow University have been looking at just what compounds fruit juices contain. And they've discovered the most nutritious drink is not the breakfast glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice.

The fruit with the highest level of polyphenols -- compounds that help eliminate free radicals from the body -- is the purple Concord grape. It is as high in antioxidant properties as red Beaujolais wine.

Apple juice is next on the list, but the cloudy, not the clear, variety. On an equal footing as cloudy apple juice are cranberry and pomegranate juices, both high in phenolic antioxidants. They are lower, however, in the nutrients found only in citrus juices like grapefruit.

To get the most health benefits, Professor Alan Crozier, head of plant biochemistry and human nutrition at the University of Glasgow, who led the study, recommends drinking a balance of each of the juices, rather than ingesting only one fruit.

At Edinburgh's Saturday-morning farmers' market, John Gallagher mans his Ella Drinks stand. A line forms in front with shoppers and students on limited incomes, convinced by the taste and promise of fruit juice, which at $6.70 for a 750-milliliter bottle are not cheap.

Once a developer working for the Bacardi Rum company and Appletise, a Schweppes carbonated apple-flavored soda, he "got fed up with London, sitting on the Underground -- what a waste of time!" he said.

Now he sells bottled juices made from handpicked berries as part of a two-man company. His Blaeberry Drink comes from wild fruit picked in the Arctic forest of Finland and shipped over to Scotland as a pressed juice. The blaeberry is also known as a "bilberry" and is the European cousin of the American blueberry.

The fruit for his Raspberry Drink, however, is locally sourced. The drink is made from pesticide and herbicide-free Scottish-picked raspberries, grown in fields he can point to on a local map. The juice from a full pound of them goes into every 750-milliliter bottle, which are barely sweetened with sugar.

"U.S. studies have found raspberries are packed with antioxidants, flavonoids and vitamins," he said. "Trials have already shown these are all elements that provide protection against heart disease and they may well do the same for some cancers. They're looking at ellagic acid as the most effective of the natural ways to block carcinogens, and raspberries are the richest food source. But even if you're not persuaded by these facts, why wouldn't you pick a drink that hasn't been adulterated?"

Bonnie MacInnes, who was shopping for her two young children, voiced a common admonition from doctors: "You have to be careful with fruit juices and how much sugar they contain, or there's no point in switching over from fizzy drinks."

Flavonoids, anthocyanins and hydroxycinnamates are the main active components of dietary polyphenols found in a large number of fruits and vegetables. They're believed to account for 93 percent of polyphenols present in fruit juices.

While the compounds in fruit have been associated with reducing cholesterol along with the risk of heart disease -- through improved circulation and the prevention of some cancers -- some U.S. and Japanese studies also suggest they may help prevent Alzheimer's disease.

John Gallagher says you don't just have to drink his Bouvrage juices. You can turn them into marinades or desserts such as this one. Unless you live in the British Isles, or until they are exported to the United States, you'll have to make your own raspberry juice. Buy organic raspberries, crush them in a blender, then press them through a sieve to extract the seeds. One pound of raspberries should give you the necessary 1 cup of juice, which you can sweeten to taste to make your own drink and top off with carbonated water.

-- Bouvrage Fool

-- Serves 4

-- 1 cup raspberry juice

-- 2 cups natural yogurt

-- 2 tablespoons sour cream

-- 2 tablespoons brown sugar

-- Combine yogurt, cream and sugar in a bowl, then gradually fold in the raspberry juice.

-- Chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours and serve in large wine glasses with shortbread cookies.