There should be a literary introduction that today, in the age of evidence-based medicine, when many medicines are created by science, people still do not forget what nature has given us.
It is not for nothing that the familiar names of berries, herbs and plants can often be found in the composition of specialized food or medicines.
The picture for the article gave us away long ago, and today we will talk about the black elderberry.
Maria Ilyina, a nutritionist, deputy chairman of the Public Association “Nutritionologists of Russia”, helped us to understand this issue.
– Maria, what role do natural medicinal plants play in the production of specialized and functional products? Like black elderberry, for example.
– Natural components in functional products are widely used as sources of various biologically active substances. That is, with the help of plant extracts or other plant components, the product is enriched with antioxidants, flavonoids, vitamins. Many natural biologically active substances are involved in the activation of various processes in the body as signaling. Or they suppress some processes – for example, inflammatory ones.
– And in the creation of what specialized and functional products is black elderberry used and for what purposes?
– In everyday cooking, black elderberry is used in the preparation of drinks, preserves, jams. Black elderberry flowers are used to make a fragrant drink. In the production of functional products, black elderberry is not widely used yet. There are suggestions that elderberry has an immunostimulating effect, and for this purpose its extract is used in the creation of various dietary supplements. There is no convincing evidence of such an action of elderberry yet.
At the same time, the black elderberry, like all wild berries, is a rich source of various phytonutrients, which are scarce in the daily diet of a city dweller. This plant contains a large amount of anthocyanins – substances that give the fruit a purple color. Research shows that regular consumption of foods containing anthocyanins can help maintain vascular health and prevent a number of diseases.
– By the way, about dietary supplements and other means: some people are categorically against the ingestion of “chemistry”. What would you say to those who, instead of a special product with black elderberry, would prefer a broth of black elderberry? Are they right that a natural remedy without additional components is more useful?
– “Chemistry” “chemistry” “strife. If we are talking about a product that has undergone a deep industrial processing, contains little dietary fiber, a large amount of sugar or fat, and at the same time is enriched with some potentially useful plant extract, then the health benefits from it, of course, are doubtful.
At the same time, there are specialized functional products with a balanced composition: they have a high nutritional value, can be part of a healthy diet, enriching it with essential nutrients. Black elderberry broth is a delicious drink that can also be a component of a complete diet. It will contain both polyphenols and anthocyanins, as well as a specialized product, we just do not know their concentration.
You should not oppose specialized food products to ordinary ones, the quality of the diet as a whole matters. It is important that the daily diet is balanced and varied, meets the human needs for energy and nutrients.
The material was prepared by Alexandra Goryunova