Using vegetables to make smoothies and juice: tasty with additional nutritional value

Factors such as higher income, aging of population, new life-style, market promotion, and consumer awareness of quality produce have contributed to increase fruit and vegetable consumption. The increasing interest for human health has highlighted the importance of fruit and vegetable presence in the modern diet. Fruits and vegetables are rich in antioxidant compounds that can reduce the risk of chronic diseases by protecting against free-radicals. Vegetables are composed by over 90% of water, thus once harvested they begin to undergo higher respiration rate, resulting in moisture and turgor loss, quality decay, and potential microbial contamination. Many fresh vegetables have a shelf-life of a few days before becoming unsafe and undesirable for consumption. Storage and processing technologies have been introduced to transform this perishable food into safe, delicious, and stable products. The continuing growth of the convenience food sector is due to the continuous technological innovation that the players are offering to satisfy consumer’s modern life style. The nutritional value can change when the vegetable is processed depending on the vegetable used and the nutrients within. Only few nutraceutical compounds increase their biofunctional activity when the products is industrially processed, because of too high pressures and sterilization temperatures. Tomato and carrots are the most used vegetables for making smoothies and juices, although several others have incredible nutritional and nutraceutical value. Many are usually mixed with either fruit, other vegetables or both.