TikTok loves a banana smoothie.
In a few minutes of scrolling you might see smoothie recipes, banana-freezing tips (peel it first!
Lets debunk that smoothie advice you heard on TikTok
Wait, since when do bananas ruin smoothies?
Since August, apparently.
Astudypublished in the journalFood & Functionfound that bananas can reduce the bioavailability of flavon-3-ols in smoothies.
Where they go wrong is concluding that we shouldnt put bananas in our smoothies.
Thats not what the scientists concluded, and theres no need to give up your bananas.
So clearly the banana warnings are overblown.
Antioxidants are a broad class of chemicals.
The antioxidant studied here isnotany of the above, but a different one found in tea and cocoa.
Its called (-)-epicatechin, and its part of the antioxidant family called flavon-3-ols.
A glass of milk and a capsule containing the cocoa extract.
Somewhat surprisingly, it did!
After drinking the berry smoothie or taking the capsule with milk, blood levels of these chemicals were elevated.
But after drinking the banana smoothie, they werent.
More importantly, what the studydid notfind
The studydid nottest a berry smoothie with an added banana.
None of the smoothies combined berries and bananas.
The studydid nottest levels of antioxidants or other nutrients from berries.
They were looking specifically at what happened to the antioxidants provided in the cocoa extract.
Were you drinking smoothies for the express purpose of increasing your intake of flavon-3-ols?
The recent study did not take any of that away from you.
You still get all of the benefits above, no matter whats happening to the flavon-3-ols in your smoothie.
If you want to get more flavon-3-ols, the best thing you might do is drink some tea.
