Leh Berry (Seabuckthorn) juice contains 100 nutrients, eight vitamins, 24 minerals and 18 amino acids, all packed together with an original fruit colour and flavour. It is perhaps the only fruit juice that claims to be anti-ageing, and a fountain of youth that enhances body endurance and improves memory.
I was looking for various natural drinks for my body building needs, which should be a rich source of various vitamins and nutrients and I found the one in the form of Leh Berry Juice. Now it a part of my regular diet.
The Leh Berry juice, developed in collaboration with the Defence and Research Development Organisation (DRDO), is regularly supplied to the Indian army, especially at high altitude areas like the Siachen glacier to spruce up their energy levels. ?At high altitudes you need to tolerate stress of cold hypoxia, caused due to low oxygen pressure and isolation. The seabuckthorn is highly stress-resistant as it contains Vitamins C, E, beta-carotene and flavonoids and it also serves as an anti-oxidant that slows the ageing process and improves memory. So the product is very beneficial for soldiers, ? says Dr Selvamurthy, Chief Controller, Research Development and Human Resources of DRDO. The Field Research Laboratory (FRL) of the DRDO has been researching the seabuckthorn for the last five years before it finally launched Leh Berry in 2003.
:::: Legends associated with the seabuckthorn ::::
* Genghis Khan, the Mongol conqueror, was no dietician. Yet, way back in the12th century, he touted the seabuckthorn fruit as an invigorating energiser and even ordered his armies to eat it, to improve stamina and prevent altitude sickness.
* It is said that a famous Tibetan doctor first explored the nutritional value of seabuckthorn in the eighth century. For many centuries, the knowledge of the miraculous effects of seabuckthorn was mastered by the Tibetans and Mongolians.
* It is believed that in 12 BC, the ancient Greeks found that after a war, the deserted wounded horses survived miraculously after wandering in a jungle for a long time and even became stronger with glittering fur. The jungle was Seabuckthorn Jungle, hence the fruit has the botanical name ?Hippophae Rhamnoides? or shiny horse. Another legend says that ancient Greeks used the seabuckthorn as a diet for race horses.
* The leaves of seabuckthorn leaves were the preferable food of Pegasus, the winged horse.
* One of the most striking legends refers to the custom in some ancient kingdoms to execute convicts by dropping them into barrel of boiling oil. The legend tells that if the oil in the barrel was substituted by the Seabuckthorn oil, the convict had a chance to survive.
* Russians are said to have learnt about it some 300 years ago-though they started making use of it?s health-related properties only after World War II. Russian cosmonauts used a cream made from seabuckthorn on the spaceship Mir to protect themselves from cosmic radiation and to serve as an oxygen supplement.
While most other drinks freeze at very low temperatures, this plant has a gene that gives it protection against freezing at temperatures as low as minus 22 degrees. ?The fruit was always eaten by the local people, who call it tserma, to cure headaches, as well as for environmental applications like soil stability, before FRL initiated the extraction.? While countries like China, Russia and Germany have been making a wide range of products including pharmaceuticals and wines from the seabuckthorn, in India it has so far been restricted due to the difficulty in picking the berry. So the potential of the miracle fruit has yet to be exploited, with the possibility of a variety of seabuckthorn-based products being developed in the future.
:::: The nutritionist speaks ::::
The vitamins mentioned on the Leh Berry pack are anti-oxidants. Most fruits and vegetables like oranges, tomato and sweet lime have anti-oxidants and vitamins A and C, though the amounts vary. Most berries also have anti-oxidants. For example, a cherry has proteins, minerals, fibres, carbohydrates, calcium, phosphorous, iron, vitamins like B complex and Vitamin C.
It is possible that the vitamins are much more concentrated in the Leh Berry product. Anti-oxidants neutralise free radicals that either enter the body through toxics or are released by the body as a by-product. The presence of a large number of free radicals in the body can cause cancer and also speed up the ageing process. Anti-oxidants help to remove free radicals from the body and so the chances of cancer and ageing are reduced. If the claim made by the company is correct, then the product will have an anti-ageing and energising effect. Different foods have a different combination of nutrients. The nutrients may be present in the product but each may be of a varying amount.