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They Ate Up All My Blueberries! By
Dr. Al Sears
Blueberries
are one of my favorite snacks.
I’ve
tried to grow blueberries at my house along with other fruits in my
garden. It
almost drove me crazy.
The
hard
part is that blueberries like soil with a lot of acid content. You have
to
start preparing it a year before you’ll be able to eat them.
I
had to
experiment a little to get the soil right. And once I was able to grow
them, I
was really excited.
Except
the raccoons ate them all.
I
must
have some really healthy raccoons in the woods around my house.
Blueberries
have lots of fiber which helps prevent heart disease, and they’re low
on the glycemic index (40),
so they don’t spike your blood sugar. And eating them can help your
memory and
other mental abilities.
But
the
newest research on blueberries has found two exciting things. They can
help
fight hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis) and protect your
liver.
In
one
study, researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture looked at
animals
with atherosclerosis. They gave a formula with only 1 percent
freeze-dried
whole blueberries to one of two groups. The other group’s formula did
not
contain the berry powder. After 20 weeks, the blueberry formula group
had as
much as 58 percent less artery hardening than the non-blueberry group.1
And
blueberries help your liver, too. Most people think of it as just a
blood
filter. But your liver does some of the best stuff that happens inside
you.
One
of
those things is that your liver turns almost every nutrient you put in
your
body into the proper form so you can use it for energy.
In
other
words, your liver helps your body act more youthful, and keeps the
needle in
your energy tank on “Full.”
Eating
blueberries helps in two ways. The first is that blueberries help you
make more
of the super-antioxidant called SOD. I call it the body’s “master
guardian.”
This ultimate antioxidant can keep liver damage from happening in the
first
place.
Blueberries
also can reduce damage that might have already occurred. In one study,
researchers gave animals liver disease, and then fed one group a
regular diet
and another a “blueberry prevention” diet. The blueberry-fed animals
all had
their liver disease significantly weakened, and had reduced signs of
liver
injury.2
It’s
easy
to add blueberries to what you eat. If you can’t grow blueberries at
home,
fresh blueberries are available for nearly eight months of the year.
The
biggest
blueberry producers in the United States are Maine and Michigan, where
they
have the perfect soil and summer sun. Stay away from blueberries from
South
America. Other countries often spray their fruits with toxic pesticides.
If
you
already eat blueberries and you’re looking for ways to get more, the
first
thing you want to know is that many processed foods like cereals,
pastries,
bagels, breads and breakfast bars are not made with real blueberries.
Instead,
manufacturers are faking blueberry content using artificial colors,
hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup.
Stick
with real blueberries or products more likely to have real blueberries
in them
like organic jams and yogurts.
Sources 1 Wu, X., Kang, J., Xie, C.,
et al, “Dietary Blueberries Attenuate Atherosclerosis in Apolipoprotein
E-Deficient Mice,” Journal of Nutrition 2010 ; 140 (9) Note: The good folks at the FTC
require me to disclose that I am an affiliate of the companies that |
The
easy
part is that blueberry bushes like to be in full sunshine and get about
an inch
of rain a week. No problem in South Florida, right? 