In the spotlight - Raspberries

I owe my recent holiday to Cornwall for the inspiration behind what's in the spotlight this week. While we didn't go fruit picking or see anyone selling punnets from an honesty box at the end of their drive, we did stop by a farm shop and enjoyed a raspberry cream tea - when in Cornwall it's obligatory to have one cream tea. So besides being currently in season and being rich in Vitamin C, what else might you want to know about raspberries?

Berries are often heralded as super-fruits, which relates to their antioxidant content. One such antioxidant, which raspberries are particularly rich in is ellagic acid. It has been suggested that this antioxidant could play a role in cancer prevention or treatment. Indeed research in the lab suggests that ellagic acid may slow the growth of some tumours. However the mode of action is unclear and as yet there have been very few clinical trials in humans, so there is currently inadequate evidence that ellagic acid could prevent cancer or be used as a potential treatment. Despite the lack of reliable evidence for ellagic acid's role and a large query over what dose would be required and how much is actually safe to take, ellagic acid supplements are available to buy.

Do the companies that manufacture these supplements really have their customers' best interests at heart or are they merely cashing in on people's vulnerability? When someone has any disease that is potentially life-limiting isn't it only natural that they will try anything that may help, particularly if they are not responding well to conventional treatments? What might the consequences be if they abandoned their medical treatment - which has to be evidenced based - in favour of a poorly understood alternative?

Besides the moral questions of selling little-studied nutrients, supplements raise a number of other issues. Firstly it's difficult to overdose on nutrients found in foods, but the same isn't true with dietary supplements, which can contain tens of times the amount required, which the body may or may not dispose of. There is also the argument that no one nutrient is the be all and end all; it's important to eat a wide range of foods to obtain all the nutrients required by the body, so focusing on an individual nutrient could be at the expense of others. Lastly nutrients often work together in their mode of action, so isolating one to take as a supplement, although more concentrated, may not be so well absorbed or effective in its mode of action as if it had been eaten when as part of a food.

As we've said so many times before, it's always best to get your nutrients from food rather than supplements. So although we may have drifted away from raspberries, we'll end with some recipes for how you can enjoy them.


Rise and shine smoothie - a useful way to use up raspberries when they are past their best
Slice a ripe banana and add with a handful of raspberries to a jug.
Blend till smooth then top up with apple juice till the desired consistency has been achieved.


Almost guilt-free iced raspberry mousse
Add a 250g tub of Quark (virtually fat-free soft cheese) to a bowl with 25g of icing sugar and a few drops of lemon juice; beat with a wooden spoon till smooth.
Add half a 250g pack of frozen raspberries and stir through till the mixture is swirled with pink.


Photo by Fir0002/Flagstaffotos