One of the best things that the summer season brings around is fresh berries to eat and enjoy. It is easy to imagine the taste of sweet ripe berries as you bite into them and juices come rushing out into your mouth. Not only are fresh berries a tasty sweet treat to be had in the spring and summer seasons, but studies have shown that there are benefits to eating berries all year long, not just a few months out of the year. Doctors have found that there are several health benefits to eating berries all year long, benefits such as helping people with high blood pressure, heart failure, stroke risks, kidney failure, and more. There are several ways to keep berries available to you so as to eat them year-round and reap from the several benefits that they have to offer. Below is a list of ways in which to enjoy fruit all year long.
It is obvious that berries are at their peak freshness in spring and summer months, so one way you can keep all of that freshness preserved the rest of the year is to pick them when they are at their best and freeze them. Once frozen, you can go back to the freezer a few months later, add the plump juicy frozen berries to a smoothie, and have yourself a great, healthy, nutritious drink.
Another way to enjoy berries all year long is to dry them out. Drying out berries when they are at their freshest keeps the nutrients and taste well preserved for weeks and months to come. You can then add those dried fruits to already healthy foods like yogurt, granola, ice cream, or cereal and have yourself a tasty topping. Not only is this a healthy way to keep fruits preserved, but it holds onto the sweetness of the fruit and is a treat that you won’t want to put down.
One fruit that has a particularly large amount of health benefits is blueberries. Blueberries have long held onto the title of king of antioxidants. Blueberries protect against cancer, helps lower bad cholesterol, and can lower blood pressure. Blueberries are a great fruit that can be canned without the use of sugar. Canning blueberries preserve their fresh flavor and they can be stored at room temperature for long amounts of time! Similar to the process of canning blueberries, strawberries are a great fruit that can be made into a jam. The cooking time is relatively quick and only a small amount of sugar is needed to make homemade strawberry jam, which means their bright red color is preserved and its naturally sweet taste is not compromised.
Raspberry puree is a delicate option that is sweet, tasty, and lasts for ages. Fresh raspberries are turned into a puree and preserved with a small amount of sugar; the puree is sweet, tart, and tastes as good as raspberries do when they are freshly picked. The puree can be used to make raspberry lemonade, a unique type of teas, nutritious sweet smoothies, cocktails, and serve as a great topping for ice cream or frozen yogurts. The puree is a great way to enjoy the sweet taste of raspberries all year long. Going along with raspberry purees, there is also a raspberry jam that has intense bursts of flavor and does not require any added sugar or pectin to preserve its powerful taste.
A lot of times people associate cranberry sauce with Thanksgiving meals, but it can actually be an incredibly healthy treat that is enjoyed all year long. Cranberries are a superfood that helps prevent some cancers, prevent UTIs, and improve immune systems. A lot of cranberry sauces that are sold in stores are packed with added sugar which takes away some of its nutritious value. However, cranberry sauce can be made using pears, oranges, and other acidic fruits as sweeteners. Made this way, it has a long shelf life and the natural cranberry tart flavor really shines. Its healthy integrity is kept intact and the tasty treat can be enjoyed any time of the year, not just at Thanksgiving or Christmas, or in the summer months when cranberries are at their peak.
There are so many ways to preserve fruits so that you can eat them in different capacities all year long. They can be kept fresh and tasty without needing to use extra sugar, thereby keeping all the health benefits intact.