There really is nothing quite like freshly picked ripe fruit – nature’s candy. When people bemoan the fact that “healthy foods” don’t taste as good as food that’s “bad” for us, I can’t help thinking about a ripe peach that is so juicy you need to eat it over the sink and have a wash cloth ready to wipe your face afterwards…I mean really, how do you beat that?
Summer is a great time to find deliciously ripe, fresh berries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, and cherries, and often they are less expensive now than other months in the year. The less fruit has to travel from orchard, berry patch or farm to your fork, the more nutrients it has and, just as important, the better it tastes.
In addition to a variety of vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber, summer fruits are loaded with beneficial plant compounds that act as anti oxidants, quell chronic inflammation, lower cholesterol and blood pressure, and in some cases fight cancer cells. All this and flavor too!
Unfortunately, sugar has gotten such a bad rap in general that people speak negatively about eating fruit because it has “too much sugar.” For the record, the problem “sugars” are not generally those found naturally in whole fruit but the added or processed sugars. If you have diabetes or other blood sugar problems you do need to pay attention to the amount of fruit you eat at one time and fruit juice (even made with 100% fruit) can spike blood sugar. Also, some people are sensitive to the natural fruit sugar called fructose and need to limit the amount they eat as well because too much can make them feel bloated or gassy. For most of us though, eating too much fruit is not a problem because the high water content and natural dietary fiber in the whole fruit fill us up before we overeat it.
In keeping with our August theme of preserving the harvest, the other thing you need to know about fresh fruit (whether it’s wild huckleberries or cultivated peaches from local gardens and farms) is that it tastes better frozen than anything you buy already frozen. Freezing your own fruit is easy and when you take advantage of summer prices, economical. There are many resources that tell you how to easily freeze fresh fruit including these websites:
Post contributed by Mary Howley Ryan, MS, RD – nutrition consultant to the Jackson Whole Grocer.
