Nowadays, people love looking for their health solutions in the form of a pill and companies bank off isolating and selling functional components of foods as dietary supplements. But as Elizabeth Reverri and colleagues from the University of California Davis point out, “functional ingredients may not produce the same effects when delivered outside a whole food matrix.” These researchers were interested in understanding how the food matrix contributed to the health benefits of two compounds: antioxidants and fiber. And what better group of subjects to test potential health benefits than overweight-obese men and women with metabolic syndrome. This study was a randomized, controlled, crossover trial consisting of three study days, each separated by one week, in which the 12-hour overnight-fasted subjects consumed a black bean (BB), fiber-matched (FM), or antioxidant-matched (AM) breakfast meal made of commercially available Western-style foods and had blood draws before and for 5 hours postprandially. Meal composition...
