pink or treat

So, it's Halloween, our Sophie's leaving day and the last day of Breast Cancer Awareness month. What better excuses to dress up, wear it pink and raise a nice little sum for charity.

 

Just another regular ol' day in the office for Jules and Ali.

yum, yummier, yummiest

You may have wondered why some of our smoothies have posh gold labels. Well, those bling little drinks are our range of superfruit smoothies. They're super rich in functional foods and are the healthiest recipes we could make.

Our newest smoothie in the range is our cranberries, yumberries and blackcurrants smoothie.

 

 

 

Yumberries are kind of new, in an old way. They were invented way back when angry gods started thunderstorms with big hammers made of stone. A long time ago. But they’re new to us. So we thought we’d get them into a smoothie quick sharp. They grow on trees (not bushes) and are roughly the same size as a big cherry, complete with a single stone in the middle.

In China, where the fruit is from, they’re known as yang-mei. But an enterprising American called Mr Stenftenagel thought that ‘yang-mei’ sounded a bit like ‘yummy’ whilst visiting Shanghai a few years ago, and the name stuck. Quite right too. Stenftenagelberries would have been all kinds of wrong.

You can find our new, extra yummy, superfruit smoothie in supermarkets, your local shop and lots of delis and sandwich shops all across Ireland.

 

 

Sugar and Energy by Dr. Shilpee

Hello. Our resident nutritionist is the very lovely Dr Shilps. As well as being very lovely and a born foodie, she's spent about 10 years studying nutrition (she's got a BSc, MMedSci and a PhD in it) and there's still lots of stuff she's finding out and telling us as the science world explores nutrition even more.

Anyway, there’s lots of information out there about nutrition and food and sometimes it can be really confusing. So we thought it would be nice if we had a blog post where Shilpee can tell you all about it and you can tell us what else you'd like to know too. In this one Dr. Shilps is going to talk about sugar and energy...

Sugar (the white stuff you get in a sugar bowl) is always seen as the culprit beind energy highs and lows, so I'm going to uncover the truths about this for you right here.

Sucrose

Sugar is also known as sucrose. Sucrose is a disaccharide which translates from Greek as "2 sugars". The 2 sugars are glucose and fructose, which are called monosaccharides (which for all you clever things out there does indeed mean "single sugar").

So what happens when you eat sugar?

When you eat sucrose, it gets broken down into glucose and fructose. Glucose goes into the blood and the level of it is very closely regulated by the hormone insulin. If there's too much glucose in the blood, insulin comes along and whisks away the excess so your blood sugar stays at the right level.

What happens to glucose in the blood?

Well, it's used as fuel in the body. Glucose is the primary fuel for the body and brain - without it, it would be very hard to function and do things like talk on the telephone at the same time as painting your nails and making cheese-on-toast. Any glucose that isn't used up on these sort of things goes to the liver.

Right. So what happens to fructose then?

So, fructose on the other hand doesn't go into the bloodstream. Which means it does not impact directly on blood sugar levels. Instead, it goes straight to the liver, where the liver performs one of it's many roles, which in this case is as a temporary storage house. Fructose and unused glucose are stored in the liver and then released when your body needs it.

And what happens if your body doesn't need it?

Like any excess food, if you don't burn off the excess sucrose, your body will eventually conserve it as fat.

So what's the best sort of energy to have?

You should try to eat foods that have a low glycaemic index (GI). The GI is the power of a carbohydrate to raise glucose levels of a food once it's been eaten.

Carbohydrate can be easily converted into energy for the body and there are 2 main types

(1) Complex carbs like starch (found in things like bread, rice and potatoes)

(2) Simple carbs like glucose, lactose and fructose (found in things like fruit and milk)

Typically , white bread has a GI of 70 which is classed as high, whereas lentils have a GI of 30, which is classed as low.

How do I get steady energy then?

If you eat lower GI foods, your body will get a steady supply of energy which means you won't have to secrete as much insulin to bring your sugar levels down. This means the body doesn't have to work as hard. Fibre, protein and fats all slow down the release of glucose as well so that energy release is nice and steady. Fibre is particular good as it also benefits the digestive system, helps you to feel full and has no calories.

So a great example of an amazing low GI combo would be porridge oats with milk and fresh raspberries and blueberries for breakfast. It's what I eat every morning and means I don't start reaching for the biscuits at 11am.

So what about smoothies?

Our smoothies have a low GI content. This is because all the sugar comes naturally from the fruit, so there is more fructose than glucose and sucrose. Hurrah indeed. Also, smoothies have heaps of fibre in them because they contain whole crushed fruit (on average 4g of fibre per bottle) and as fibre slows down the release of sugars in the body, our smoothies will help to keep you going that little bit longer.

Anyways, that's enough on the sugar lecture for today.

It'd be great to hear what you think about all this sugar business and to hear what your favourite keep-you-going food is too.

Happy chowing for now,

Dr. Shilps

kids design competition winners (& a new kids recipe)

A little while ago we held a competition to see if you could design our kids cartons. We had loads of brilliant entries – thank you to everyone who drew, cut, pasted and glued. We chose four excellent winners,  and now looking very smart in their finished glory below.

We'd definitely suggest it's worth clicking on each to see them bigger.

By Holly.


By Max.

By Lizzie.

By Charlotte.

Check out innocentkids.com/win for all of the winners and runners-up – we hope you like them as much as we do.

And here's our new kids recipe that the winning designs will all be featured on... Please say hello to pomegranates, blueberries & blackcurrants. Look out for the winning designs, and the new recipe in the shops from now.

innocent orange juice

We've always wanted to do an orange juice. In fact, we've been  making it for years to go into our smoothies. Recently we got to  thinking: why keep all the stuff we've learned about squeezing oranges  hidden away?

So all this week we've been squeezing oranges, getting our orange juice down to the village fete (dishing out plenty of free samples) and finally onto the shelves of Superquinn and Tesco. If you've tried it already please let us know what you think by emailing OJ@innocentdrinks.com, or by leaving a comment on this post. We're bursting to know your thoughts.

         
The bottom two photos were added to our facebook fete page by Dwiko Arie Nugroho & Fi Oakes so all copyrights and stuff belong  to them. We hope you don't mind us using them here Dwiko & Fi,  they're great shots of the giant orange so we couldn't resist.

absolutely crackers

On our last night out we were chatting about feats  of strength and skill. Like licking your elbow or those mad babies  that can balance on one foot  and hang spoons from their nose

In  the midst of the discussions a challenge was laid down and so at lunch today  the inaugural innocent cracker challenge was held. The challenge? Who  could eat the most crackers in two minutes without drinking any water. Would it  be the confident Peter, the newcomer Nick or the realistic Ali?

“Nick was sure he heard the water speaking to him.”

After a tough two minutes Ali had managed to finish her three. Peter had started off promisingly but bit off more than he could chew and was  disqualified for non-completion…

Don’t show this to his mum

Which  made Nick the triumphant winner having polished off a whole five  crackers in the two minutes, a feat indeed.

Ali taking her share of the glory

this season's berries

      

Sustainability Jess and Rozanne went to Serbia in July to check out  our raspberries and blackberries. Naturally, we're striving to only buy  the very best berries for our smoothies, and they were there to make  sure that we're buying them from farms that look after their workers  and the environment.

      

      

The farms we buy our berries from are typically very small family  farms – only 0.1-0.2 hectares. They grow a mixture of different crops:  maize for feeding animals, plums for local markets and making schnapps,  vegetables for the family and berries for some income.

      

      

These farms have been with the same families for generations, and  they know exactly which crops to plant where to make the most of the  natural environment (sun access, types of soils, water etc). The  picking of the berries is mostly done by family and friends.

      

      

Serbia is a pretty interesting place. Not only do they have amazing  berries, but they also hosted the Eurovision song contest earlier this  year, have the tallest hay bales in Europe, and make some pretty spooky  pottery.

      

      

Overall, Jess and Rozanne were really happy with what they found,  and feel confident that only the best berries are making it into our blackberries, raspberries and boysenberries smoothie.

      

   

      

And once the hard work was done, they celebrated by drinking a few  litres of homemade schnapps with this farmer. Those girls sure know how  to party.

   

 

please say hello to our new Irish website and blog

We're busily working away on our new site and soon this space will be filled with lots of news, interesting tidbits and a few bad jokes from all of us at Fruit Towers, Dublin. Until then, if you've any thoughts, suggestions or good cake recipes, why not drop us a line at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Or if you fancy being part of something rather special, we'd love you to join our family. We'll send you a fortnightly newsletter, competitions to win free smoothies and maybe a present if you're good. No chanting, no boring stories and no having to watch Aunty Mary eat broccoli. Join by clicking here.

Bye for now, innocent

folf professionals

Folf is a new sport, a bit like golf but played with a foam ball.

It is traditionally played in Mountjoy Square in Dublin, by two men called Brian and Peter.

But play has been suspended after Claire got in the way of an important folf tournament and ended up with a black eye. Ouch.