When you're offered the choice between sweet (like Bing, Rainier, or Lambert, grown mainly in Washington, Oregon, or Idaho) or tart (like Montmorency or Balaton, usually from Michigan) cherries, go for the type that puckers your mouth. Tart cherries contain anthocyanins, an antioxidant that helps reduce inflammation, swelling, and pain due to gout, arthritis, or postexercise muscle soreness.

 

A small study published in the "British Journal of Sports Medicine" shows that drinking 12 ounces of cherry juice twice each day for eight days helps decrease exercise-induced muscle pain and soreness. Researchers from the USDA's Human Nutrition Research Center at the University of California, Davis, also found that healthy women ages 20 to 40 who consume two servings of tart cherries each day have a 15% reduction in uric acid levels that contribute to gout.

 

You may have heard of using melatonin supplements to help promote regular sleep habits, but according to researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center, tart cherries are one of the few natural food sources of melatonin. Melatonin helps regulate our sleep and wake cycles but also plays a role in decreasing inflammation associated with heart disease.

 

Research from Michigan State University shows that tart cherries contain twice as many anthocyanins as do sweet cherries. Get the most antioxidants by drinking tart cherry juice, which has almost twice the antioxidant content of dried cherries and six times as much as frozen cherries. One ounce of tart cherry juice or 1/4 cup of dried tart cherries provides sufficient antioxidants to met your entire daily requirement for health benefits.

 

Cherries are also excellent sources of fiber, beta-carotene, folate, vitamins C and E, and the minerals potassium, magnesium, and iron. One cup of fresh cherries contains 40% of your vitamin A needs, 26% of vitamin C, and 2 grams of fiber with only 77 calories.

 

Dried tart cherries are available year-round. Toss cherries into vegetable salads, add to rice or grain pilafs, include in fruit and yogurt parfaits, use in combination with nuts and seeds in trail mix recipes, or add to your favorite cookie recipe instead of raisins.

 

Article by: Lynn Grieger, RD, CDE, cPT

Article provided from Today's Diet&Nutrition, September/October 2008

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