Catherine Saxelby's Foodwatch | Q. I love making fresh fruit smoothies and was wondering if vitamins degenerate if the smoothie is stored in the fridge for a few days?

Home Expert Advice FAQs - Keeping food safe Q. I love making fresh fruit smoothies and was wondering if vitamins degenerate if the smoothie is stored in the fridge for a few days?

Q. I love making fresh fruit smoothies and was wondering if vitamins degenerate if the smoothie is stored in the fridge for a few days?

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A. From the time they are picked, anything done to fresh fruit or vegetables will cause some loss of vitamins, including peeling and cutting or simply storing them whole in the refrigerator. Processing either by blending, chopping or cooking will increase these losses. But the loss is largely with the water-soluble heat-sensitive vitamins such as vitamin C (which we rely on fruit for) and some of the B group vitamins such as thiamin (B1), riboflavin (B2) and folate.

The sooner you eat or drink your fruits after processing, the more nutritious they will be. After one day, I'd ‘guesstimate' that around 30 per cent of the vitamin C would have gone and around 50 per cent after 3 days depending on the type of fruit. This is a rough estimate only.

But life is not always that simple and by the time you've gone to the trouble of preparing all the ingredients and getting the blender set up, I can well understand that you'd like to keep the smoothie for a couple of days to drink.

If you smoothies are based on milk, I suggest you keep your smoothies for only a day at most after they are prepared.

If they're based on an acidic fruit such as orange juice, the acidity help preserve the vitamins for longer so I'd say you could store these for 2 or 3 days at most.

Comments (2)

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Can freezing increase vitamin loss?
Brent , April 16, 2011 | url
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Yes Brent. Freezing anything does reduce some of the vitamins particularly the more "fragile" of the vitamins such as vitmin C, thiamin (B1) and folate, another B vitamin. But the losses are similar to food that you've cooked yourself as home - which is why it's a good idea to eat some fresh fruit, salad or a juice each day. Regards Catherine
Catherine Saxelby , April 19, 2011 | url

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