So I turn 30 on Sunday, and I am throwing my own birthday party. It doesn’t bother me though, I love birthdays. It’s just another great reason to celebrate. I do have one requirement, a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins. It has been a staple on April 27th since I turned 5 years old.  The fiance has been notified.

I went to the grocery store yesterday (actually 3 of them) to search for all the perfect ingredients for my recipes. I left the store with with a variety of canned, fresh, and frozen foods.

This reminded me that I still needed to answer a question someone posted last week about retaining nutrients. His question pertained to whether he would get more nutrients from a banana (eating) or a banana smoothie (drinking).

My best answer to his question is that he would be getting approximately the same nutrients in this particular situation.  Nutrient retention is mosted affected by things such as exposing the food to heat, air, and changing the pH of the environment that the food is in (ie exposing the food the acidity in your stomach).  

 In general, we retain the most nutrients from a food when it is local & fresh, because it has less “food miles.”  Food miles refers to the distance your food travels from its site of production to your plate. The lower its mileage, the more nutritious!

Vitamins such as E, C, B1, folate, and retinol are some of the more fragile nutrients and tend to be the most affected through cooking, processing, and aging.  Minerals and the main macronutrients (protein, carb, and fat) are typically the most hardy and more likely to survive.

I am not for sure if any of my guests will be asking me about the nutritional quality of the foods at my party, hopefully they will just be asking for my recipes and enjoying the fresh fruit in their Sangria!