Edited

[Mechanism]

Edited

[Mechanism]

Edited

[Dean Pomerleau]

Mechanism,

 

You didn't post a link or pictures (as far as I can tell) of the dried natto you bought on Amazon, but it sounds intriguing. Can you post a link?

 

P.S. I moved your photo post to this thread.

 

--Dean

[Mechanism]

Edited

[Dean Pomerleau]

Mechanism,

 

The dried natto looks interesting. I expect the nattokinase will come through the drying process just fine, as should the vitamin K2. If you don't have access to asian market, this seems like it might be a good alternative to buying nattokinase & K2 in supplement form, although more expensive.

 

Buying natto at the market definitely looks cheaper. Soybeans are about 15% moisture content (pdf), so the 70g equates of dried natto beans you purchased equates to about 80g of fresh natto. A little more than that (90g = two styrofoam packages) of fresh (frozen) natto costs under $2 at the asian market (4-packs for ~$3.50), compared with almost $11 on Amazon.

 

I have no opinion or information on the olives or tigernuts.

 

--Dean

[Mechanism]

Edited

[Dean Pomerleau]

Mechanism,

 

Alright. You suckered me into it. According to [1], dried tomatoes suck, at least when comparing to fresh in terms of antioxidant content. Here are a few representative graphs from the full text comparing fresh,  sun dried (SD), oven dried (OD), vacuum oven dried (VOD) and freeze dried (FD) tomatoes:

 

 

If you care about antioxidants / polyphenols, you're clearly better off eating fresh tomatoes rather than dried. If you really want dried, it looks like freeze dried is the next best to fresh.

 

As everyone almost certainly knows, cooking fresh tomatoes, particularly with oil, is best for lycopene.

 

--Dean

 

 

Food Chem. 2015 Apr 15;173:156-62. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2014.09.162. Epub 2014
Oct 7.

Drying effects on the antioxidant properties of tomatoes and ginger.

Gümüşay ÖA(1), Borazan AA(2), Ercal N(3), Demirkol O(4).

 

Full text: http://sci-hub.cc/10.1016/j.foodchem.2014.09.162

In this study, the effects of four different drying processes, sun drying (SD),
oven drying (OD), vacuum oven drying (VOD) and freeze drying (FD) for tomatoes
(Solanum lycopersicum) and ginger (Zingiber officinale) in terms of thiolic and
phenolic contents have been studied. Thiol content, total phenolic content (TPC),
ascorbic acid (AA) content, and cupric ion reducing antioxidant capacity (CUPRAC)
were determined in fresh and dried samples. Glutathione (GSH) and cysteine (Cys)
were determined as the thiol contents of tomatoes and ginger. Significant losses
were observed in the contents of TPC, AA, GSH and Cys and CUPRAC values in all
samples that were dried using the thermal method. There was a statistically
significant difference in the losses of the TPC, AA, and thiol contents between
the use of thermal drying and freeze drying (except Cys in tomatoes) methods.
Freeze dried tomato and ginger samples have been found to have better antioxidant
properties.

Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2014.09.162
PMID: 25466007

[Mechanism]

Edited

[Dean Pomerleau]

Mechanism,

 

I found the paper on the effects of various drying techniques on tomato antioxidants via a PubMed search for "tomato drying".

 

--Dean