Including berries with your cereal, salads, or desserts makes solid nutritional sense. Berries may turn out to be the super fruit that can keep you healthy.
If you are a berry lover, you are leading a healthier lifestyle than you realize, and if you can take or leave the little bird fruit, think again. Berries can pack a powerful nutritional wallop. Adding a daily helping of berries to your diet can go a long way toward reducing your blood pressure and putting you on the road to a healthier lifestyle.
Super Fruits – And Tasty Too
Cranberries, strawberries, blueberries, acai berries, and goji berries are among the berries showing promising results in ongoing studies around the world. They are being assessed for their value in the treatment of such diseases and ailments as leukemia, breast cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, gum disease, and macular degeneration.
Fruits and Nutrition
It appears that berries, the bird's fruit of choice, contain a pharmacopeia of antioxidents, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. I don't want to drop names here, but your favorite health food websites are full of glowing references to the great things that flavenols, carotenoids, and anthocyanins can do to help you fight disease. Many berries have these substances in almost indecent concentrations, and you aren't getting them with a lot of added fat; many fruits are low in calories. They also have the advantage of being portable, and as a result of our being able to enjoy a global marketplace, available almost year round. For those of you without a large produce vendor nearby, the fruit juice aisle of your local grocery store has more varieties of fruit juices available now than ever before, and with lower sugar options too.
Berry Fruit Facts
The following facts may surprise you, but they have been validated, and more, are only the tip of the iceberg. The links above will provide references to studies conducted at major universities that put berries at the forefront of nutrition and health research. Almost every day, new health benefits of berries are being discovered, and these claims are backed by solid science.
- Eating more blueberries can help you retain your good eyesight.
- There are about 210 mg of potassium in a serving of seven strawberries, and only 45 calories.
- Drinking cranberry juice will help you avoid urinary tract infections.
- A serving of strawberries (about seven) contains a full day's supply of vitamin C.
- In tests conducted at University of Western Ontario, eating cranberries helped slow the growth of breast cancer cells in animal tests.
- The folate in strawberries and other berries may delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
- Scientists at the USDA Research Center found that blueberries helped slow age related mental decline in rats.
- Blueberries are high in fiber and will help keep you regular.
With all that to recommend them, why not try a berry or two with your morning cereal tomorrow, or over your vanilla ice cream tonight?
