PUT down that red wine. You can get the heart-boosting benefits of grapes
without the alcohol. By exposing red grapes to bursts of ultraviolet light,
Spanish researchers have raised tenfold the concentration of resveratrol, a
natural phenol credited with giving red wine its heart-protecting properties.
After several bursts of irradiation, a serving of 200 grams of grapes contained
3 milligrams of resveratrol鈥攁s much as three glasses of wine.
But Juan Carlos Esp铆n, a member of the team which developed the
enriched grapes at the Murcia labs of CSIC, Spain鈥檚 principal research council,
says that wine drinkers shouldn鈥檛 worry. 鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to get similar results in
red wine,鈥� he says. Details of the technique will appear soon in the Journal
of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.