Go Fruit!

Stuffed apples with beef

Fruit is rarely used as an ingredient in main courses. Make an exception and try these untraditional delicious stuffed apples with beef for your dinner.

Ingedients, serves 4

6 big acidic apples

2 dl minced fried beef

½ an onion

½ preserved cucumber

½ dl breadcrumbs

2 egg whites

Salt peber

2 spoons of butter

Method

Cut the apples into halves and hollow them with a knife. Grate the apple pulp and mix it with beef, chopped onion, cucumber, breadcrumbs and egg whites. Stuff the apples with the mixture and put a knob of butter on each.

Bake for 45 minutes at 170°C in an ovenproof dish with lid.

Serve for example with rice and baked tomatoes.

World’s biggest mango weighs 3.5 kg

A massive mango, grown by a couple from the Southern part of the Philippines, has recently  been approved for a place in Guinness Book of World Records. Weighing in at 3.5 kg, this "Floroda Keith" variety of mango had a diameter of 50 cm and a length of 30 cm. (Source: Quazen).

Apple fed rats used to develop a model for cholesterol

Even though the metabolism of rats and humans is different, studies with rats are highly valuable to explore how foods and nutrients may work in human bodies. In ISAFRUIT, rats have, among other things, been used to investigate how apple intake affects cholesterol levels. Traditionally, it has been difficult and time consuming to measure cholesterol in rats, because a large amount of blood was needed and the samples furthermore had to be fresh. However, ISAFRUIT researchers have now found a new and better method. By comparing traditional measurements to results from a ‘scan’ of blood plasma, they developed a model, which can be used to predict cholesterol levels with good accuracy. ‘Blood scans’ requires less amounts of blood and can also be performed on previously frozen samples. Thus, future studies can benefit from the new method to further investigate if apple intake affects cholesterol levels in rats (Source: Metabolomics).

Fruit salad for all tastes, 4 servings

Everybody will surely love this fruit salad. By choosing exactly the fruits you like best, it can be adjusted to suit all taste buds. Make a big salad for the whole family or simply let each family member create their favourite combination of ingredients.

Ingredients, 4 servings

400 g of mixed fruits or 100 g per portion (You can use any fruits, both raw and canned)

2 spoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 spoons of sugar

2 dl raisins

70 g nuts and or chocolate (e.g. walnuts, hazelnuts and dark chocolate)

1 dl whipped cream

1 dl natural or Greek yoghurt 

0.5 teaspoon vanilla sugar

 

Method

 

-   Mix the lemon juice and sugar.

-   Cut the fruits into pieces and add the lemon and sugar marinade.

-   Whip the cream and mix with vanilla sugar and yoghurt.

-   Chop nuts and chocolate.

Mix fruit, raisins, nut/chocolate, vanilla cream and serve.

Grapes as a reward replace anaesthesia

Chimpanzees from Twycross Zoo in Leicesterchire are key participants in a genome study investigating DNA fingerprints in primates and its association to family relations. Interestingly, fruits turned out to play an important role in this study. In order to get DNA for the study, cheek swabs had to be taken regularly, which involved sending for vets to anaesthetise the chimpanzees. However, using grapes as a reward replaced the need for both drugs and vets. Well, who would not voluntarily swap a few cheek cells for a couple of grapes? (source: Leicester Shire Promotions)   

New website for fruit allergy sufferers

About 4 % of the European population are allergic to one or more fruits. After eating specific fruits allergy sufferers most often experience mild symptoms such as itching and swelling of the tongue, lips and throat. The allergic symptoms can discourage intake of allergy-causing fruits and some fruit allergy sufferers even avoid fruits altogther to be on the safe side. 

 

A new website 'Fruit and Allergy', which has been developed as part of the ISAFRUIT project, is launched today. It aims to help fruit allergy sufferers to safely increase fruit intake without developing allergic symptoms.

 

Visit 'Fruit and Allergy' and:

- Find your fruit allergy type

- See which allergy-friendly fruits are available for you

- Get insight into ongoing research in fruit allergies

- Take part in debates and question the researchers 

 

 

Hot apple drink, 5 cups

We continue the warm fruit theme from last week with this spicy hot apple drink.

Ingredients, 5 cups

1 liter apple juice

2 sticks of cinnamon

2 star anise

1 organic orange

Method

Wash the orange and cut it into slices. Put all ingredients in a pot and heat until the temperature is just below the boiling point. Leave it with the lit on for about 10 minutes to increase the flavour.

Serve warm!

Highlights from ISAFRUIT professional's day

On the 29 October 2009 professionals from the fruit industry were invited to Angers in France to hear about ISAFRUIT research. In a total of 14 lectures, ISAFRUIT researchers presented results and innovations from the project covering fruit quality, growing and processing techniques, consumer perspectives and healthy effects of fruit. Watch these 5 minutes of highlights and get a taste of the event.

 

Future fruit innovations

How will we eat fruits in the future? This question has been investigated by ISAFRUIT researchers who have been developing new fruit products.  Currently under development are dried blackcurrants infused with fructose and prebiotics to promote a good intestinal flora and apples that have been genetically modified to resist attacks from fungi and therefore can be grown with reduced amounts of pesticides. Consumers from four European countries (The Netherlands, Poland, Greece and Spain) have evaluated 10 of the novel fruit products as part of a large-scale consumer survey. The researchers hope to find out which fruit products the European consumers would like to find in their supermarket in the future. We will report on the results from the survey when they are available.

Children’s packed lunches lack fruit

A survey among 1300 English school children aged 8-9 has demonstrated that only 50 % of the packed lunches contain fruit, while 25 % contain sugar or fat rich foods such as sweets, crisps and soft drinks. Vegetables are least common, reaching only 20 % of the lunch boxes. These numbers are far from the national nutritional standards for prepared lunch meals in England and even though a high percentage of packed lunches contain fruit, it is the least likely lunch box item to be eaten (source BBC)