Richard Sprague

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Frozen blueberries are better for me

Created: 2017-10-17 ; Updated: 2017-10-17

This week I received new results from the new microbiome health company DayTwo. Based on more than five years of highly-cited academic research by Prof. Eran Segal and Prof. Eran Elinav from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, their app uses a metagenomic sequencing of your gut microbiome to tell which foods are good for you. It took them about two months to process my samples, after which my iPhone can tell me which foods are better or worse for my health.

Interestingly, their algorithm thinks frozen blueberries are better for me than fresh.

This is not the first time I’ve heard this about blueberries. Jo Robinson’s excellent book Eating on the Wild Side points to a 2004 Australian study that shows frozen blueberries have higher levels of healthy Anthocyanins and other nutrients than fresh ones. It would be interesting to see whether DayTwo’s database is simply building on top of previous food research like this, or if it found a positive benefit based on its own independent evaluation of its effect on the microbiome.