New Discovery~Amazing DIY Video Shows How to Make an Oxide Form of Vit. C Using Fresh Zucchini That Permits Double the Cellular Uptake of Vit. C via Oral Ingestion

New Discovery~Amazing DIY Video Shows How to Make an Oxide Form of Vit. C Using Fresh Zucchini That Permits Double the Cellular Uptake of Vit. C via Oral Ingestion

This is an important breakthrough which will allow people to obtain much higher levels of Vitamin C in the blood and our cells – via oral ingestion – without the need to go to a physician’s office and pay for a Vit. C IV drip.

From Ken Adachi, Editor

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/Amazing-DIY-Video-Shows-How-to-Make-an-Oxide-Form-of-Vit-C-Using-Fresh-Zucchini-That-Permits-Double-the-Cellular-Uptake-of-Vit-C-Via-Oral-Ingestion-04jul17.shtml#top

July 4, 2017

 New Discovery~Amazing DIY Video Shows How to Make an Oxide Form of Vit. C Using Fresh Zucchini That Permits Double the Cellular Uptake of Vit. C via Oral Ingestion (July 4, 2017)

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It’s simply wonderful to have at our fingertips the ability to communicate with the entire world – from the comfort of our home – and be given the opportunity to present the most helpful and valuable information imaginable. And so it was that on the eve of July 4th, Independence Day in America, I should happen to stumble upon a video titled “Liposomal vs. Oxidized Vitamin C and DIY DHAA: The Amazing Green Smoothie” from Doug Kitt [R], owner of ReCverin LLC in Salt Lake City, Utah (I’ve included an English transcript of everything said on the video for foreign readers to electronically translate into their native language). The video was uploaded three years ago on July 15, 2014 and on July 3, 2017 shows a count of 87,251 views. While 87,251 is a very decent view count for your average tutorial video, it’s far below the view count that this man deserves because he has revealed in this do-it-yourself video a fabulous chemical conversion technique that could greatly benefit everyone by allowing a much larger cellular uptake of Vit. C than previously thought possible via oral ingestion. This is an important discovery. Take the time to read what’s being explained here and watch the video. You’ll be glad you did.

A little background first to help you understand the significance of this information: I first came to realize how important Vit. C is to the proper functioning of all our bodily systems when I read Dr Linus Pauling’s book, Vitamin C and the Common Cold in the 1970s. The only thing we were taught in school about Vit. C is that you needed it to prevent scurvy, but that was about it. So Dr. Pauling’s book created a lot of curiosity from both eager readers (such as myself) and Medical Establishment debunkers who, as usual, were anxious to pooh pooh Pauling’s discoveries about Vit. C’s curative capabilities.

The topic was brand new at the time and it was fascinating to discover that something as ordinary as Vit. C, just one of many vitamins we were told that we get plenty of from our diet, could have such a profound healing and restorative effect upon the body if taken in large enough doses. After his first book on the common cold, Pauling went on to write other books about the nearly miraculous ability of Vit. C to knock down cancer and other disease conditions – if delivered in sufficiently large amounts to achieve the curative effect. Large amounts of Vit. C on a cellular level could kill cancer cells by producing enough hydrogen peroxide to destroy the cancer cells (healthy cells contain an enzyme called catalase which breaks down hydrogen peroxide, but cancer cells don’t produce catalase, so they are vulnerable to the oxidation of hydrogen peroxide).

Linus Pauling recommended taking the ascorbate form of Vit. C (a mineral combined with ascorbic acid, such as Sodium Ascorbate or Calcium Ascorbate) because the ascorbate form has a pH of about 7 and it won’t upset your stomach if you take a very large amount at one time (such as a level teaspoon which is equivalent to 5 grams). If I got really ill or came down with a bad systemic infection, I would take 5 grams of ascorbate every 4 hours and within 24 hours, I usually felt 1000% better and well on my way to complete recovery

Prior to viewing this video, the only way I knew how to deliver really large amounts of Vit. C into the bloodstream was to have an intravenous (IV) infusion of Vit C which meant going to a physician’s office and paying for an IV drip. And for those who knew about it and could afford it, many undoubtedly benefited from that treatment and could often see amazing results after one or more Vit. C drips, depending on what the problem was. Another idea being promoted today is the use of the Liposomal form of Vit. C, but as this video demonstrates, the Liposomal form doesn’t deliver any more Vit. C into the blood than does ordinary Ascorbic Acid; so why spend the money?

On the other hand, if you took Vit. C orally using ascorbate or ascorbic acid or Liposomal Vit. C, you could archive good results, but you could only absorb about 10% into your bloodstream of what you ingested . And even then, there’s a saturation mechanism that kicks in that creates an upper maximum limit of about 500 mg. of Vit. C in your bloodstream, no matter how many grams of ascorbate or ascorbic acid you consumed.

DHAA
In the video seen below, Doug Kitt explains how to make an oxidized form of Vit. C called dehydroascorbic acid (abbreviated DHAA) which can readily enter the bloodstream (and your cells where it changes into ascorbic acid) using a different passive transport molecule abbreviated as “GLUT” (= Glucose transporter) than the active transporter SVCT (Sodium Vitamin C co-Transporter) molecule used by ascorbic acid (or ascorbate or Liposomal Vit. C) to enter the bloodstream from the gut.

The GLUT transport molecule is plentiful in the gut because it transports glucose and it requires no extra energy to do its job, so it transports DHAA into the blood at a faster rate and at a substantially higher amount than can the less plentiful SVCT molecule carry ascorbic acid through the gut and into the blood (or into cells). The SVCT molecule is less efficient because as an active transporter, it requires energy, and it’s saturable which limits the total amount of ascorbic acid which can be transported into the cell.

To demonstrate the greater blood plasma uptake of DHAA, Doug ran his own experiment by consuming 5 grams of 1) ascorbic acid (AA) on Day 1 (shown in dashed red), and 5 grams of DHAA (about 1/3 of the green smoothie) on Day 2 and measured the Vit. C blood plasma levels at 60 minute intervals out to 5 hours.

(The dashed black line and the solid black line on this chart represent test results measured by other researchers who used 5 grams of AA and Liposomal Vit. C respectively.)

As you can see from the chart, when Doug drank the green smoothie containing 5 grams of DHAA, his blood level of Vit. C (solid red) rose to 472 mg. (indicated as uM – micro mols – on the chart ) at the 60 minute mark, which is about double the amount which ascorbic acid, ascorbate, or the Liposomal Vit. C could produce in the blood. He also mentions that this is the HIGHEST level of Vit. C blood plasma ever recorded based on 5 grams of Vit. C intake. While Doug consumed 5 grams of DHAA from the freshly made green smoothie to match the 5 gram test amounts of AA and Liposomal Vit. C used by other researchers, he says that he could have made the smoothie double or even triple strength from what he made on the video. By extension, if he had consumed 10 grams or even 15 grams of DHAA (by drinking the entire 4 cup smoothie), could he have obtained 944 mg. or 1,416 mg. respectively of Vit. C levels in his blood plasma? It would be interesting to find out.

If drinking 5,000 mg (= 5 grams) of DHAA produces 472 mg. of blood plasma Vit. C after one hour, then a single ice cube of green smoothie containing 500 mg. of DHAA would produce 47.2 mg. of blood plasma Vit. C after one hour. Ten green smoothie ice cubes would equal 5 grams of DHAA. Twenty green smoothie ice cubes = 10 grams of DHAA. And thirty green smoothie ice cubes = 15 grams of DHAA. The possibility now exists to obtain nearly as high a dose of blood plasma Vit. C from oral dosing with DHAA as one might obtain with an Vit. C IV drip. This could open up huge mega-dosing Vit. C therapy possibilities for people with very serious health conditions like cancer.

Details on how to properly make the green smoothie is explained very well in the video below. Pay close attention to the details if you want to do this correctly and achieve the desired results. I’ve added some additional notes below on making the Starch-Iodine reagent, as well as notes on the Ascorbic acid oxidase enzyme found in zucchini which allows the conversion of ascorbic acid into DHAA. View the video a few times to get all the details straight on making this smoothie correctly. The only way to keep the DHAA viable at 90% potency for 30 days is to freeze it. At room temperature, the green smoothie will lose 25% of its DHAA potency after 12 hours, so freezing it is a must for 30 day storage.

Ascorbic acid oxidase found in Zucchini

Ascorbic acid oxidase (AAO) is a common enzyme found in many plants, but zucchini has the highest concentration of this enzyme which acts as a catalyst (utilizing oxygen from ambient air) to change ascorbic acid into dehydroascorbic acid. You have to pay attention to his instructions regarding an optimum pH of 6 as well as the the optimal temperature of the smoothie solution at 40 degrees Centigrade to get the very best catalytic results.

Starch-Iodine Reagent used to verify Ascorbic Acid conversion into DHAA
The blue colored reagent will react with Ascorbic Acid and turn the reagent clear. If all of the ascorbic acid in the blended solution is converted into DHAA, there is no more ascorbic acid left to react with the reagent and the color of the reagent will remain blue. To demonstrate in the video, he’s using water combined with ascorbic acid to test for the positive reaction and just plain water to demonstrate the negative reaction. Later in the video, he checks the green smoothie solution itself to test for the presence of ascorbic acid. If the reagent turns even a little bit clear, there’s still some ascorbic acid remaining in the blended solution. He keeps blending the smoothie solution with open air until all of the ascorbic acid is converted into DHAA and the reagent remains blue. Doug only adds 2.5 grams of ascorbic acid at a time and blends it until the DHAA conversion is complete (by checking the solution with the Starch-Iodine reagent). With complete conversion, he then adds another 2.5 grams and repeats the process until the entire 16 grams of ascorbic acid has been added to the green smoothie.

The Vit. C absorbed into your blood above the normal plasma level would last about 4 hours (unless you took bioflavinoids, which could double the blood elevation time to about 8 hours). Our blood plasma usually contains about 100 mg of Vit. C (shown as 100uM – micro mols – on the chart).

Below the transcript, I’ve added the links to many journal reports and articles which Doug has posted at his web site. Well worth reading to learn more about DHAA.

Ken Adachi

© Copyright 2017 Educate-Yourself.org  All Rights Reserved.

Doug Kitt’s video
Liposomal vs. Oxidized Vitamin C and DIY DHAA: The Amazing Green Smoothie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHKBhz7OCB4

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Aido file of this video:
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/Doug-Kitt-Make-DHAA-Green-Smoothie-using-Zuchinni-43mins.mp3 (48MB)

English Transcript

Hello, I’m Doug Kitt with ReCverin company of Salt Lake City, Utah. Today I’m going to show how you can make your own dehydroascorbic acid, a form of oxidized vitamin C, for supplementing your diet. And as the title implies, we’re going to be making a vegetable puree that is often referred to as a “green smoothie.” But what you’ll learn is that, in scientific terms, we’re going to conduct a natural, biochemical synthesis reaction, and we’ll utilize a sensitive redox indicator to monitor the progress of this reaction. In short, I’m going to teach you how to be a successful biochemist! And amazingly, we’re going to do this in the kitchen at home with a blender, plain old zucchini squash, common vitamin C, and other materials that you probably already have or that you can easily and economically obtain. But maybe you’re asking yourself, “Why would I want to make a dehydroascorbic acid dietary supplement? What is this stuff, what’s so special about it, and why would I want to use it instead of my current vitamin C supplement?” Well, these are all things we are going to cover in this video. But one reason is to raise the level of vitamin C in your bloodstream higher than can be achieved by eating regular old vitamin C tablets. Liposomal vitamin C claims to accomplish this; unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to. But before I get to discussing why you will want to use dehydroascorbic acid instead of liposomal vitamin C, I think we should take a few minutes to discuss the natural ways that vitamin C is absorbed. After that we’ll examine some scientific literature to see just what real evidence there is to support using liposomal vitamin C to increase vitamin C absorption, and why you should consider switching to something better. Common vitamin C. Each of the tablets in this jar contains 1000 milligrams, or one gram of l-ascorbic acid. This is the most common supplemental form of vitamin C you will find, but you should be aware that there are others. In fact, if we take a look at the Wikipedia Vitamin C webpage, this is what we find: “Vitamin C refers to a number of vitamers that have vitamin C activity in animals, including ascorbic acid and its salts, and some oxidized forms of the molecule like dehydroascorbic acid.”

So instead of using the blanket term “vitamin C”, from now on, when I say “AA,” I’m referring to l-ascorbic acid, and when I say “DHAA”, I’m referring to dehydroascorbic acid. And any time I say “vitamin C” I will be talking about just these two forms, because these are the two most common natural forms of the vitamin, and represent the majority of what you normally eat. Typically about 10-20% of the vitamin C you get from food is DHAA, and the remainder is AA.

Now, let’s talk about how Vitamin C is absorbed in your body. And for that, we’ll start with the cells that line your digestive tract, the first barrier to Vitamin C absorption. All cells have a cell membrane that encloses them, and it is across this cell membrane where absorption actually occurs. To get an idea of what this looks like, let’s take a quick look at the Wikipedia cell membrane page. This image shows a diagrammatic representation of a typical cell. For the purpose of this discussion, I want you to imagine that this is one of the nutrient-absorbing cells that line your intestine. You can see that the cell membrane is a very complex structure with lots of different components.

One component is known as a protein channel, or transport protein. It is depicted as a little tube that leads from the outside of the cell into the inside, because its job is to bring nutrients from the outside of the cell to the inside. The cells that line your digestive tract have a specific type of transport protein called SVCT. When you eat AA, it is this transporter that brings the vitamin from your digestive tract into your intestinal cells, to finally be absorbed into your bloodstream. SVCT is what is known
as an active transporter, meaning it requires energy to fuel the absorption process of AA.

Also, as compared to some other types of transport proteins, SVCT transporters are present in somewhat small amounts. Taken together, that means the absorption of AA is limited. Let’s look at a different diagram for just a minute. This page comes from teaching materials used in a college level nutrition class at Kansas State University. First note that this confirms what I told you already; that a significant portion of the vitamin C you naturally eat is DHAA. Also that AA is transported into the cell by the SVCT protein and finally into the blood. And finally to emphasize that, “This mechanism is saturable, meaning that at high concentrations it reaches a threshold where it cannot take up ascorbic acid any faster. Thus, there is a limit to how much can be taken up through this mechanism.”

Now when it comes to absorbing a recommended daily allowance of vitamin C, this isn’t a problem. But that’s only about 100 mg. In fact, if you want to take more, according to this study, you can eat up to about 500 mg of AA before you saturate this SVCT absorption mechanism. But wait a second; 500 mg is only half of one of these tablets. So what does that mean? Well, in short, if you’re trying to greatly increase the vitamin C in your bloodstream by eating lots of these, it just isn’t going to work very well. What you’re looking for is an additional or alternate pathway that can move vitamin C from the gut
into the bloodstream at a faster rate.

This higher absorption is what liposomal vitamin C promises. Perhaps you already know that liposomal C is a mixture containing AA and a phospholipid called phosphatidylcholine. The claim they make is that AA is absorbed more readily because it is delivered in a”biological capsule” called a liposome which allows the AA to easily cross into the cell. It is an interesting theory, but I think before we buy into it, we ought to take a look at the results. And by results, I mean absorption.

It is relatively simple to test the absorption of any kind of vitamin C preparation by simply measuring the blood levels before and after eating it. Here we’re going to examine the results of a liposomal C absorption study, and then later we’ll compare these results to results we obtained with the “green smoothie” that I’m going to teach you how to make. In this study, scientists began by giving a person 5 grams of common AA tablets and then measured the amount in her blood plasma at various times afterward. This was a control. The next day they gave the same person 5 grams of liposomal C and measured her levels again, before and at various times after eating the vitamin C preparation. For the first day, the control, this is what the data look like. Having looked at these types of studies before, I can tell you, it is a pretty typical absorption profile of AA. But that isn’t the important part. The next day, the person ate 5 grams of liposomal C, and here are the results. If you think these data look the same as the control, I agree. There doesn’t appear to be any significant difference between liposomal C and regular tablets. But don’t despair just yet; let’s talk about another method for driving up blood
levels of vitamin C!

And this time, no hocus pocus. This time, let’s talk about a well-known, scientifically-valid mechanism that has been proven in many scientific studies. Let’s talk about an alternative pathway for absorbing vitamin C, one that your body already has built-in. DHAA is absorbed by the cells in your digestive tract using a different transport protein than AA, a transporter called GLUT. Let’s look again at the teaching materials from the Kansas City University nutrition class. The name GLUT, or G L U T, is derived from the words “glucose transporter,” and comes from the fact that these transporters were first discovered as proteins for transporting glucose, or sugar, into the cells. Interestingly, these transport proteins are multi-functional, and it was later discovered that they are also the transporters for DHAA. Well, since glucose is the most common sugar in the diet, your intestinal cells have a lot of these GLUT transporters. That means your intestinal cells have a great capacity to absorb DHAA. And on top of that, GLUT transporters are a type known as “passive transporters.” Passive transporters don’t require any extra energy for absorption and therefore move DHAA into the cells much faster than SVCT transports AA. DHAA is converted into AA once it gets inside the cell.

If you find some time, you should read more about DHAA, especially the reports from scientific journals. They are fascinating. But what I wanted to do is reproduce the liposomal study, but this time using DHAA instead of liposomal. So, here is what I did. I tested three different vitamin C preparations on myself on 3 consecutive days. On the first day, a fasting baseline blood sample was taken, then I drank 5 grams of l-ascorbic acid dissolved in water. At 30, 60 and 120 minutes after I drank it, blood
samples were also taken. On the second day, I did the identical experiment except I drank the “green smoothie” that we are going to make, prepared to contain 5 grams of DHAA. And finally, on the third day, I again did a similar test, except that I drank the green smoothie to which I also added 5 grams of glucose. I used vitamin C doses of 5 grams so that I could actually directly compare the results with the first study. If you’d like to see the actual lab reports, just visit our website.

And here are my results, shown in red. As you can see, similar to the other study participant, I had a typical absorption profile of common AA. But look what happened when I drank 5 grams of DHAA…my plasma level shot up to 460 uM in 30 minutes and to 472 uM at 60 minutes, over 5 times higher than baseline, and more than twice as high as the peak level from 5 grams of AA.

These are the highest levels ever reported for any size dose of any oral form of vitamin C. In fact, in a different experiment reported in this same study to which I’ve been referring, two subjects each took a whopping 36 gram dose of liposomal vitamin C and never achieved plasma levels this high. What they both achieved was diarrhea from eating such a huge dose of liposomal C!

Now remember that I explained that DHAA is absorbed by the same receptors as absorb glucose? That’s why I added an equal amount of glucose to the test on the third day; to see if the sugar would compete with DHAA for absorption. And here are those results, shown in green. As you can see, the plasma levels are not as high as the second day. This confirms that the glucose transporters are involved exactly as all the previous scientific research has shown; and it also teaches us something about how to use this green smoothie. It is clear that if we want to achieve the highest possible blood levels, that we should not add anything to the recipe that contains sugar, and we should probably take it at least an hour before or after any other food. Well, it seems like a no-brainer; if you want to increase vitamin C levels in the bloodstream, the way to do it is with DHAA. But there is a problem…where do you get DHAA? It is difficult to produce, and has only limited stability. In fact, at the present time, there is only ONE commercially-available dietary supplement in the whole world that has significant amounts of DHAA. It’s called ReCverin 50/50, and it’s a very fine product. It can be applied topically to increase skin levels of vitamin C for skincare, or used as a mouth rinse or gargle, to specifically increase vitamin C levels in the gums, mouth and throat. It can be taken orally as a dietary supplement to provide vitamin C in both of its natural forms, just like what you get from eating fresh green vegetables. But ReCverin 50/50 was never intended as a source of vitamin C in such large doses, so if you’re interested in eating a whole gram or more of DHAA, ReCverin 50/50 will work, but it will be quite expensive. So today, the only way you’re going to get DHAA in gram quantities that most people can afford is to make it yourself as I’m going to demonstrate. So let’s talk about the science behind this project for a minute.

There is an enzyme called Ascorbic Acid Oxidase or AAO. It’s common in many plants, but zucchini squash has a higher concentration of it than any other known source. AAO catalyzes this reaction, the oxidation of ascorbic acid to dehydroascorbic acid. Now all we’re going to do, basically, is puree zucchini in the blender and add AA to it. The enzyme in the zucchini will catalyze the conversion of AA into DHAA using oxygen from the air. But we need to be careful to control certain conditions of the reaction to make sure it works, including the pH or acidity, the concentrations of the reactants, and the temperature

Take a look at this graph. The AAO enzyme has a pH range that is optimal for its activity. We need to keep our puree within this optimal pH range, and very importantly we don’t want to exceed certain pH levels. If we make the solution too acidic, it might kill the activity of the enzyme completely and the reaction won’t work. On the other hand, even though the enzyme is active at high pH, DHAA is unstable at high pH and breaks down quite rapidly So we need to balance the pH carefully. The enzyme also has an optimal temperature range. I’ll explain why this is important and how we control it in just a few minutes.

Also don’t forget that oxygen is a crucial substrate for this reaction. It will require the amount of oxygen in 1 cup of air to oxidize each gram of AA. I’ll show you how to assure that the puree gets plenty of air.

We need a way to monitor this reaction so that we know when the AA has all been converted to DHAA. There is a very simple way to test the solution for the presence of AA. We’re going to use a starch-iodine “redox” indicator reagent, it’s this blue solution I have here. Basically it works like this: we add one drop of puree to one drop of the blue indicator solution. If the puree contains AA, then the solution turns clear; if the puree doesn’t contain AA, then the solution remains blue. It’s as simple as that. It’s based on the reducing activity of AA on iodine, or put another way, it’s based on the oxidizing activity of iodine on AA. That’s why we refer to it as a redox indicator; the word “redox” is simply a contraction of the phrase “reduction-oxidation.” I’m not going to go into any moredetail about this reagent. Just follow my instructions, prepare and use it as I describe, and you will know it’s working because you can see it. You know, I’m a scientist with over 40 years of experience in the clinical, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology industries. Today, my business is vitamin C, and even though ReCverin is a small company, we have a laboratory with all the equipment, supplies, reagents and methods necessary to evaluate and optimize this reaction, including analytical equipment to accurately measure AA and DHAA concentrations. I’m proud of all this, but I’m not telling you to brag about it. I only want to explain that I have been working with this reaction
for years, and what I have done for you is develop a robust, reliable method to produce DHAA easily right at home. I’ve optimized the amounts and conditions for you, so that if you will follow my instructions, this is not only simple but practically fool-proof. I’ve tested the recovery and the stability of the DHAA in the product so that you can confidently know not only how much DHAA you’ve created, but how to store it properly and how long it will last. As you’ve already seen, we’ve even done an expensive absorption study to prove that it does, in fact, raise blood levels much higher than any other oral vitamin C. You must realize by now that this product has tremendous commercial possibilities. We didn’t invest years of research, and lots of money, just to give it away. We have filed for patent protection, and it is important that you understand this notice The methods and products depicted in this video are patent-pending. To avoid infringement liabilities, please heed the licensing information provided later in this video. And while we’re on the topic of notices, it is also important that you understand this one: Caution: This video discusses the practice of consuming large quantities of vitamin C, also known as megadosing. Although this practice is common, it is not without side effects in some people. In particular, persons who have a genetic disease called glucose-6-phosphate deficiency, or G6PD deficiency, can suffer a serious and potentially fatal reaction to 4taking large quantities of ANY form of vitamin C. ReCverin LLC assumes no liability for the use of the product described in this video. Persons who choose to ingest this product do so at their own risk. We specifically recommend that you consult a physician prior to undertaking the practice of megadosing any form of vitamin C. We specifically recommend that you not take any more than 500 mg of DHAA in one day initially, and that if you choose to consume more than this, that you gradually increase the dose on subsequent days to assess your own personal reaction to larger doses. We specifically recommend that if you suffer any type of discomfort or unusual response to this product, that you immediately discontinue its use and seek medical attention if necessary.

OK, finally, right? Let’s make DHAA!
You’ll need a blender, measuring spoons, a potato peeler, some measuring cups, at least one microwaveable dish or cup; you’ll need 2 ice trays, a white plate, a toothpick, and at least two droppers. You also need a timer, a wristwatch will do just fine, and you’ll need a little jar with a lid of some type. And finally, it’s very desirable that you have a digital scale that is capable of weighing at least 20 grams with a precision of 0.1 gram. I bought this one online from WalMart for less than $10 including shipping. Can you do without the digital scale? Yes…but there’s a problem that I’m going to describe later.|

You’ll need pure l-ascorbic acid crystals or powder; 16 grams for this recipe. You can buy this online from many, many sources, and also locally at some health food stores. Please don’t try using vitamin C tablets, or any vitamin C product that is not just plain old USP grade pure ascorbic acid; you’ll have problems.

You need 4 pounds of zucchini, the fresher the better…ideally fresh picked from your own garden. The best ones are young fruits about 8 to 12 inches long; generally, an 8 or 9 inch one weighs about ½ pound, so 8 of them is about 4 pounds. Today I’m using store-bought, and I’ve done this many, many times with zucchini that I bought at the grocery store, and it said right on the rack that it was imported from Mexico. But it needs to be nice firm, fresh-looking fruits. If the ones you find on that rack are feeling a little spongy, or looking a bit dry and wrinkly, and the price is marked down…do yourself a favor and go somewhere else

You also need some gelatin, and some water. Now these are the only ingredients that are going into the product you’re going to eat. I emphasize this because we’re going to need a couple of other ingredients. We’re also going to use some cornstarch and some USP 2% Tincture of Iodine. This is the same stuff you apply to wounds, and you can get it in the pharmacy area of almost any grocery store. But you aren’t going to eat this; instead it is used to make the blue solution, the redox indicator that I told you about. The reagent is good for months, and there’s plenty in the little jar for many, many batches so you only have to make it occasionally. Let’s do that first.

Add ¼ teaspoon of cornstarch to ¼ cup of water in a microwaveable dish. Stir it so it’s not lumpy, and then put it in the microwave for 30 seconds on high. Then you’re going to stir it well again, and set it aside to cool. You can put it in the refrigerator or freezer, or set it in cool water if you want, but the important thing here is that it cools back down to room temperature. While this is cooling, make a solution of iodine. Put two tablespoons of water in the small container that has a lid. Add ¼ teaspoon of the 2% USP Tincture of Iodine, and just stir it in. Now, only after the starch solution has cooled 25:08down, pour it into the iodine solution slowly while stirring. You can see that we now have a dark blue solution, and that’s it…we’re done. Store this capped on the shelf at room temperature. I’ve already shown you how this works, but when we make the smoothie, I’m going to have you try this out with the puree, because it looks slightly different when there
is green stuff in it.

Now let’s make the green smoothie. We’re going to make 4 cups, using 16 grams of AA. When we’re done, we’ll pour it into these two ice cube trays, each of which holds about 2 cups and makes 16 ice cubes. We’ll cover it with Saran wrap, and freeze it. So we’ll have 32 cubes, each of which contains about 500 mg of DHAA. By the way, many ice trays make 14 cubes instead of 16, and if that’s the kind you have, that’s even better. Your cubes will be even closer to 500 mg each.
The first thing I’m going to do is add 1 cup of water and ½ teaspoon of gelatin to the blender. Just sprinkle the gelatin on top of the water and let it set. We’re just giving the gelatin a head start on absorbing some water and becoming hydrated. The gelatin provides an inert protein that helps protect and stabilize the enzyme. You only need about ½ teaspoon, more won’t improve anything, but it is very important to add the gelatin!

Next, I’m going to weigh out 16 grams of AA. Turn on the scale…let it zero…press the Tare button so it goes to zero again…and then just add the AA until you’ve weighed out 16 grams. When we add it to the blender, we’re not going to add it all at once. We’re going to add it in increments, about 2 and 1/2 grams at a time. Now I need to explain something. This particular AA that I’m using is granular, something like the consistency of table sugar. A teaspoon of this is pretty close to 5 grams, and many of you have heard this proportion before. But the problem is that the size of the crystals makes a big difference. Some AA comes as a very fine powder, like powdered sugar. A teaspoon of it weighs much less than 5 grams, maybe only 2 or 3 grams. So, if you don’t have a scale, you won’t really know for sure how much DHAA is in each of those frozen cubes. It might only 5be half what you think.

The enzyme we need is mostly found in the skin and extreme outer layer of the fruit. We don’t need the whole fruit, and we’re trying to make a solution as concentrated with DHAA as we can, so here’s what we do. First, wash the zucchini thoroughly, and then you peel each one with a potato peeler, and then peel it again. I do it like this. I count the strokes…2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11…that it took to remove the first layer, then do it again…2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11…we’re trying to get the green stuff off. We’re not going to use these; we’re going to use the skins. Then add all of the zucchini skins and puree this for 1 minute in the blender If the volume is more than 4 cups, that’s OK. If it isn’t up to the 4 cup line, add water until it is. It’s important that this puree is fluid enough that it is mixing well and creates a good vortex in the blender. Remember, oxygen is necessary, and it comes from the air that is drawn down and whipped into the puree. So if necessary, add a little
more water to assure this is mixing well. Now, if you’ve never done this before, I want you to test the puree at this point with the blue indicator solution. Put a drop on the plate, then take a drop of puree, and put it on top of the drop of the indicator solution, and stir it with the toothpick. As you can see, it stays nice and blue…that’s what’s supposed to happen. This is what the test will look like when the reaction is complete I’ve got a cup of plain water here that I rinse the dropper out that I take the puree from the blender with; you do this in-between tests. Just periodically change the water so it’s fresh and you don’t get carry-over of ascorbic acid into the next test Now we’re going to begin adding AA to the puree, but this is very important: don’t add it all at once! Add no more than 2.5 grams each time; I’m using ½ level teaspoon, because I know that’s no more than 2.5 grams, because I have a scale and I’ve weighed this. Blend this for 10 seconds or so, just long enough to stir it well and dissolve most of the AA. Once again, if you haven’t done this before, I want you to test this immediately, just so that you can see what the test looks like. One drop of the blue solution…whoops, one drop of the blue solution…one drop of the puree…stir it with the toothpick. You see how the blue color disappeared? That means there is AA in the puree. Now there’s some green color from the zucchini, but the blue color disappeared, right?

OK, cap the blender and stir for about 15 seconds; this is mixing fresh air into the puree. I told you that you need about one cup of air for each gram of AA, so there’s actually enough air in this jar to oxidize 2.5 grams. However, we don’t want it to be a limiting factor, so we DO want to provide fresh air periodically to speed up the reaction. You can do this by removing the lid or the center cap while it’s stirring, but if it’s splattering too much, another way is to shut it off and remove the lid. You can use a paper plate like a fan to push some fresh air into the jar if it makes you feel better, but in my experience just removing the lid is sufficient. Also, it isn’t necessary to continuously stir at this stage, so after 15 seconds, stop the blender, take off the lid and just let it set for 2 or 3 minutes. This is where you’re timer comes in. You know, those blender blades whipping through the puree create a lot of heat, and so does the blender motor. Remember this chart? 40 degrees is warm. 60 degrees is pretty hot, but it is definitely possible to raise the temperature of this mixture that high with constant blending for a long time.

So at this stage we’re trying to minimize the actual amount of mixing time while still assuring that it gets fresh air periodically. So just repeat this process of opening the jar, refreshing the air, blending for 15 seconds, and letting it stand for 2 or 3 minutes. It will most likely take about 10 or 12 minutes to completely oxidize this first portion, so start testing if after 3 or 4 cycles of doing this. OK, two more minutes have passed, and it’s been about 10 minutes since we’ve added the first portion of ascorbic acid.
I’m going to give this a stir, and now I’m going to test it to see if the oxidation is complete. Put a drop of blue reagent on the white plate, take a drop of the puree and put it on top of the reagent…stir it with the toothpick. You can see that this has not turned completely clear, but it is not dark blue either. What that really means is it’s just about done. So let’s put it through one more two minute cycle, and test it again.
OK, now it’s been about 12 or 13 minutes since we added the first AA. One more time a drop
of reagent, a drop of the puree, stir it with the toothpick. That’s what we’re looking for; it stays nice and dark blue this time. That means that there are 2.5 grams of DHAA that we’ve already created in the blender.

Once your test stays blue, indicating complete oxidation, you can add more AA. And from here on out the reaction will proceed much faster, oxidizing each additional portion in about three or four minutes. So here is what I do. I get the mixture stirring and then remove the center cap. I’ve actually made this little cover by cutting the top off a club soda bottle that happens to fit nicely on my blender. It stops most of the small splatters, and this small hole still allows plenty of air. I add ½ teaspoon AA, wait four minutes while it’s constantly stirring, and then just put in the next ½ teaspoon. I repeat this every four minutes until I’ve added all 16 grams.

It’s been another four minutes; at this point there is less than 2.5 grams remaining of our original 16, so I’m going to add the entire remainder of the AA right now. If you want, you can rinse the little cup with a little water to make sure you get every last milligram of AA. And since this is the last addition, I’m going to turn it on to stir, and I’m just going to let it go for a full ten minutes. About ten minutes after the last addition of AA, it’s time to start testing. If it isn’t completely oxidized within about 15 minutes,
it probably won’t ever be completely oxidized. We’ll talk about that in a minute. One drop….whoops, one drop again…we’ll test it in duplicate! It’s still starting to turn clear, so we’re going to turn it back on and let it mix with air. OK, now it’s been about 13 minutes since the last addition of AA. There that’s what we’re looking for, it stays nice and blue. That means it’s been completely oxidized. We’ve completely oxidized 16 grams of AA to DHAA.

If you followed my instructions carefully, and this failed, it’s almost certain that your zucchini was just not fresh enough and lost too much of the enzyme activity. And all you know about the puree you’ve got is that is contains somewhere between 2.5 grams and 16 grams of DHAA. So, if you don’t want to take that chance, what you do is test it and let it go to complete oxidation after every addition of AA. This takes a little longer, but if the enzyme gets exhausted before you’ve added all 16 grams, you will know pretty close how much DHAA it actually contains. Here’s another thing. It is possible, in fact very likely, that there is still plenty of enzyme activity to keep on oxidizing AA in this puree even after adding 16 grams. So at this point, you might choose to add another 2.5 grams and keep going. If you’re going to do this, however, always test each additional portion and let it go to complete oxidation before adding another portion. At some point, the enzyme will become exhausted and the reaction will stop. As I told you before, a good rule of thumb is this: if it takes more than 15 minutes to completely oxidize the last portion that you added, then the enzyme is probably exhausted. I have made batches using this
technique that are 2 or 3 times more concentrated than the one we just made. In other words, it is possible to continue this reaction such that each of your final ice cubes contains as much as 1000 or even 1500 milligrams of DHAA! It all really depends on the quality of the zucchini that you start with. But we’ve reached our goal for today, so I’m just going to talk about what we have, what to do with it, and why. First of all, I’ve tested this product immediately after it is made, and found that it contains about 95% of the expected amount of DHAA. In other words, we added 16 grams of AA, and actual measurements show that there is more than 15 grams of DHAA in the final product.

DHAA is a notoriously unstable chemical, so I’ve also tested the product to determine its stability under various storage conditions. If you leave this warm puree at room temperature, in 12 hours about 25% of the DHAA will decompose. So we want to use this or store it properly within the next couple of hours. However, if you put this in the refrigerator, in 12 hours the loss is only 5%. So you can reasonably keep a portion in the refrigerator for use within the next 24 hours. When I froze this and then tested it 2 weeks later, the loss was only 5%, so it appears that you can store this in the freezer for at least a month and it will still have at least 90% of the original DHAA concentration.

So, I’m going to pour this into ice trays, cover them with Saran wrap and freeze it. After that, I break the cubes out of the tray and put them in a zip lock bag that I store in the freezer. So each cube contains, nominally, about 500 mg. If you do the math, the actual number is about 450 mg. If you used ice cube trays that make 14 cubes instead of 16, then your cubes actually contain slightly more than 500 mg, on average. And obviously, you can freeze this in any containers and any quantities that you choose. And finally, maybe you’re wondering what it tastes like. It is completely bland. It tastes pretty much like you’d expect a puree of zucchini to taste. I’m sure there are ways to make it more flavorful, but keep in mind what I told you before…if you add sugar, including fruits that contain sugar, it competes with absorption and your blood levels of vitamin C won’t go as high.

[end of treansciipt]