day 29...

Last month a few of us here at Fruit Towers set ourselves some Lenten challenges, we thought it might be a good idea to let you know how we are getting on 29 days in.

 

As you probably remember Brian and Ali challenged each other to stop biting their own nails. Whilst Ali is a little bit behind on the challenge (the nails just keeping falling off into her mouth, she says), Brian has racked up a least a mm of nail on at least three fingers. Ali wanted to point out that she would also have a least a mm of nail on at least three fingers if she also had gone to the Maldives for 2 weeks and lazed around in the sun.

 

Although we have evidence that Juliet wore runners to the Paddy's day festival in Clane, apparently this was one of her high heel days off.

Finally, the person who seems to be winning our Lenten challenge is little baby Max, his dad Brendan set him the challenge of sleeping through the night by Easter Sunday. Baby Max has beaten this deadline by sleeping through the night last Tuesday. Well done Max.

nutrition of innocent smoothies

There has been some confusion in the media today about smoothies and their nutrition. While we can't talk for other smoothies, we thought it might be helpful to tell you more about the nutrition of our smoothies. 

 

One innocent smoothie = 2 portions of fruit

Did you know that less than 21% of us are hitting our 5-a-day? Which is a bit scary.  innocent smoothies are made from 100% pure crushed fruit, providing an easy and convenient way to get more fruit in your diet. As each smoothie is made with at least 80g of crushed fruit and 150ml of juice and as 80g of crushed fruit equates to 1 portion and so does 150ml of juice, you get 2 portions of fruit in each smoothie[1].

 

5 types of fruit in every bottle

Nutritionists recommend eating a wide variety of different fruit to ensure that you get the full range of vitamins, minerals, fibre and other phytonutrients, which are essential to stay healthy. Innocent smoothies are made from at least 5 different types of fruit so are an excellent way to get that all important variety into your diet.

 

Only 146 calories

As innocent smoothies contain nothing but two portions of fruit, they contain the same number of calories as two portions of fruit. On average, a smoothie gives you 146 kcals which is only 7% of the guideline daily amount for calories, whereas eating a banana and an 80g portion of mango provides 159 calories. In addition the calories from fruit are ‘good calories’ as they don’t just give you energy, but provide you with fibre, anti-oxidants and vitamin C.  

106% of your recommended daily allowance of vitamin C

Innocent smoothies contain an average of 64mg of vitamin C per bottle which is 106% of your recommended daily allowance. This compares to eating a banana and a portion of blueberries (80g) which provides you with 59mg. Vitamin C is probably the best known of all the vitamin family and is a powerful anti-oxidant which means it can prevent cell damage from free radicals.

 

A good source of fibre

Because our smoothies contain whole crushed fruit as well as juice, this means you get more of the goodness from the fruit, like the vitamins, nutrients and of course, fibre. Each bottle contains on average 3.7g of fibre which equates to 15% of the guideline daily amount (GDA) of fibre. That’s the same amount of fibre as two and a half medium slices of wholemeal bread.

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[1] The British Nutrition Foundation says ‘if the smoothie has at least 80g of fruit within it and 150ml of juice, this 250ml combination of crushed whole fruit and juice is likely to be closer to 2 portions of your 5 A Day’.

slimming down healthily

Finally, we're getting a wee bit of sunshine (hurrah) and for lots of us, the lovely weather is a reminder that there's only a few months till bikini/Speedos time.

Although summer is still a few months away, now is actually a good time to start thinking about losing weight as slimming down gradually is what you should be aiming for. There's nothing worse for your body than losing weight quickly or yo-yo dieting.

 

The guideline daily amount  (GDA) of calories for a woman is 2000 kcal and for a man is 2500 kcals.  So if you want to lose weight and your BMI is over 25, then you should try and reduce the calories you eat to 1500 kcals per day  (for a woman) and do some sort of physical activity at the same time.

This should result in a weight loss of about 2lbs a week which is a safe and steady weight loss (and means you're more likely to keep the weight off once you've lost it).

Science has also shown that when we lose weight, something known as our basal metabolic rate (BMR) falls too. BMR is the amount of calories we need to go about our day-to-day business and the amount of lean tissue (i.e muscle) we have is related to our BMR.

When you lose weight, most of it is fat but there is also a loss of lean tissue too which is why our BMR falls.

If you lose weight too quickly, you will lose more lean tissue than you should. Consquently,the amount of energy you need to maintain weight will fall and that's how the cycle of yo-yo dieting starts. So when it comes to losing weight, slow and steady always wins the race.

Now, I get asked a lot of questions about the calories in smoothies. Since our smoothies are made from at least 2 portions of fruit, they have the same amount of calories in them as 2 portions of fruit do. These calories come from the naturally occurring sugars found in the fruit. The average amount of calories in a smoothie is 146 kcals (which is only 7% of the amount of calories you should have in a day). Smoothies also give you lots of amazing nutritional treats like 16% of GDA for fibre, vitamin C, lots of anti-oxidants and a whole host of phytonutrients.

When you're trying to lose weight, it's really important that you get all the nutrients you need. Fruit and vegetables by their very nature are full of nutrients and because they contain water, the amount calories are lower than other foods. Smoothies are made from 100% fruit, so are a brilliant way to stay healthy whilst you slim.

As ever, do drop me a line if you have any questions.

Bye for now

Dr. Shilps

freaky friday

If you're currently looking for some freak for your Friday have a watch of this...

superheroes

While we were at Clane GAA hall on St. Patrick's Day, we had lots of little-uns drawing superheroes to hang up on our bunting.

One of our favourites is 'Monjoe' whose superpower is that he can run like an ostrich by Saoirse...

 

And we're all squabbling over who gets to display this splendid little creation over their desk...

 

With no name and no artist, this upside down little dude is a mystery.

outfit telepathy, the sequel

A while back we did a little post about Ali and Brian who came into work wearing remarkably similar outfits. 

Today they have again proved their psychic fashion senses, even as far as the mustard tops under the purple sweaters.

 

Spooky.

St Patrick's Day

Our grassy van, Lawna and our giant smoothie wedge made their debut parade appearance in a little village called Clane yesterday. Lawna looked very green with her daisies all perky and our giant smoothie made lots of new friends.

After the parade the innocent team headed on down to the GAA hall where we had a grassy picnic area, crayons and colouring books for the little-uns and lots of smoothies to keep everyone going.

Here's some nice snaps we took during the day...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

oracs and anti-oxidants

This week's question comes from Richard who asks what the ORAC content is of our pomegranate, blueberries and acai smoothie. I'm afraid I'm going to have to go a bit geeky on you for this one.

Firstly what on earth is an ORAC? ORAC stands for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity and is the method of measuring anti-oxidants in foods. ORAC results are often presented as something known as Trolox equivalents (TE) and the units are in micromole per gram (umol TE/g).

And what is an anti-oxidant exactly? Anti-oxidants are natural chemicals found in food, especially fruit and veg. They help to neutralise free radicals which can cause damage to the body's cells. A free radical is an unpaired electron (so it has a negative charge). An anti-oxidant can neutralise the negative charge and so stops damage.

There are various families of anti-oxidants found in fruit. These include flavanoids, polyphenols, anthocyanins, and vitamins A, C and E.  Pomegranates, blueberries and acai all contain good levels of anti-oxidants and this smoothie contain over 3000 umol per 250ml which is pretty good for a little bottle. And if that wasn't good enough this smoothie also gives you 2 portions of fruit.

As ever let me know if you have any questions.

Bye for now

Dr Shilps

This week's question comes from Richard who asks what the ORAC content is of our pomegranate, blueberries and acai smoothie. I'm afraid I'm going to have to go a bit geeky on you for this one.

Firstly what on earth is an ORAC? ORAC stands for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity and is the method of measuring anti-oxidants in foods. ORAC results are often presented as something known as Trolox equivalents (TE) and the units are in micromole per gram (umol TE/g).

And what is an anti-oxidant exactly? Anti-oxidants are natural chemicals found in food, especially fruit and veg. They help to neutralise free radicals which can cause damage to the body's cells. A free radical is an unpaired electron (so it has a negative charge). An anti-oxidant can neutralise the negative charge and so stops damage.

There are various families of anti-oxidants found in fruit. These include flavanoids, polyphenols, anthocyanins, and vitamins A, C and E.  Pomegranates, blueberries and acai all contain good levels of anti-oxidants and this smoothie contain over 3000 umol per 250ml which is pretty good for a little bottle. And if that wasn't good enough this smoothie also gives you 2 portions of fruit.

As ever let me know if you have any questions.

Bye for now

Dr Shilps

best smelling video in the world

According to our Juliet, if videos could smell, this one would smell the best.

If anyone else has a love for the smell of crayons let us know. We're a bit worried about her.

blasts from the past

innocent is coming up to it's tenth birthday this year, and like any 9.82 year old worth their salt we're starting to reminisce a bit. Lessons learnt, stories accumulated, favourite colouring pens lost, that sort of stuff. 

There'll be quite a lot of reminiscing in our new book when it comes out but for now here's a couple of blasts from the past closest to my desk this morning.

Here's one of our old posters from back in 2004, a vintage year in posters for us. 

And here's Rich, Adam and Jon in the park, looking a bit younger than they do now. Only a year or two, but younger.

Expect more reminiscing as the year goes on.

innocent is coming up to it's tenth birthday this year, and like any 9.82 year old worth their salt we're starting to reminisce a bit. Lessons learnt, stories accumulated, favourite colouring pens lost, that sort of stuff. 

There'll be quite a lot of reminiscing in our new book when it comes out but for now here's a couple of blasts from the past closest to my desk this morning.

Here's one of our old posters from back in 2004, a vintage year in posters for us. 

And here's Rich, Adam and Jon in the park, looking a bit younger than they do now. Only a year or two, but younger.

Expect more reminiscing as the year goes on.