Q: A friend recently suggested I take Greens First, which claims to have the antioxidant power of over 10 servings of fruits and vegetables in every scoop. Have any tests been reported indicating that such a product would really be as effective an antioxidant as 10 servings? Is there any evidence that fruits and vegetables juiced and then spray-dried at low temperature are as beneficial as or almost as good as the fruits and vegetables themselves?

Answer :Dehydrated, powdered, juiced and spraydried fruit and vegetable products can never deliver all the nutritional value of the original produce. Even if a product has the same amount of antioxidants and phytonutrients as a daily diet of fruits and vegetables, youre missing the fiber and other benefits of eating whole foods. Youre also not using fruits and vegetables to replace other, higher-calorie and high-fat foods in your diet.

The scientific claims cited on the Greens First Web page all apply to studies of whole fruits and vegetables, not to research on the actual product. Many of these promises of benefit are exaggerated or lack the cautions scientists would attach to such claims. According to Jeffrey Blumberg, PhD, director of the Antioxidants Research Laboratory at Tufts Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, The outrageous product claims on the Greens First Web site actually exceed substantially those made by FDA, USDA and other authorities and nutrition scientists regarding the benefit of increasing fruit and vegetable intake.

A search of the National Library of Medicine/National Institutes of Health PubMed database reveals no published studies of Greens First by name. A 2001 study published in the British Journal of Nutrition, however, did compare diets of five to seven servings of fruit and vegetables daily against 30 grams (a scoop of Greens First contains just 9.4 grams) of a spray-dried supplement designed to provide the equivalent antioxidant activity of five to seven servings of fruit and vegetables for two weeks in a crossover trial. Both the real produce and the supplements did significantly increase blood concentrations of ascorbic acid, alpha- and beta-carotene and lutein+zeaxanthin were all significantly increased; concentrations of lycopene, retinol and tocopherol were not affected.

So, yes, you can get some antioxidant boost from dried supplements. But youre still better off eating the real thing, as even the Greens First site acknowledges: Most all doctors agree that the best way to ensure adequate intake of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytonutrients is through a balanced diet that includes a wide variety of 5-8 servings per day of raw and lightly cooked fruits and vegetables of every color.