It may just be me, but I’ve always wondered
if the frozen blueberries that I’m eating are as nutritious as the fresh
variety that I get whenever I can find locally-grown blueberries.
I know, I know, they do have blueberries
from Peru or Chile at my local fresh produce place all winter long, but I
really don’t trust that something that comes all that way and was picked God
only knows when before being shipped contains much goodness; and even though it
probably does, to be honest I’d still rather eat stuff grown locally or at
least near to here even if it has to be in a frozen form.
Anyway, if you’ve wondered about the
nutrition value of frozen or even dried blueberries, wonder no more.
In an article in the New York Times, Anahad
O’connor cites a study published in The Journal of Biomedicine and
Biotechnology that concludes that there is no “significant differences between .
. . fresh, dried and frozen berries” in terms of their anti-oxidant content,
which is the main reason most health-conscious people eat berries (besides
their terrific taste, of course).
One thing I had never considered, though,
although it should be obvious from the taste: drying berries increases their
sugar content so that according to this report, one “cup of fresh or frozen
blueberries has about 85 calories and 14 grams of sugar (while) one half cup of
dried blueberries . . . has roughly 270 calories and 25 grams of sugar” which
is quite a difference, especially for anyone who needs to or wants to monitor
either calorie or glucose intake.
