The benefits of some fuits

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Higher antioxidant levels

Blueberries are one of the best natural sources of antioxidants. While antioxidants aren’t necessary for your body to function, they help protect your body from damage by free radicals. Your cells produce free radicals as waste products, but these particles can go on to hurt other cells. Eating blueberries regularly for just two weeks can help reduce damage to your cells by as much as 20%.

Higher antioxidant levels

Blueberries are one of the best natural sources of antioxidants. While antioxidants aren’t necessary for your body to function, they help protect your body from damage by free radicals. Your cells produce free radicals as waste products, but these particles can go on to hurt other cells. Eating blueberries regularly for just two weeks can help reduce damage to your cells by as much as 20%.

Nutrients per Serving A half-cup serving of blueberries contains:

  • Calories: 42
  • Protein: 1 gram
  • Fat: Less than 1 gram
  • Carbohydrates: 11 grams
  • Fiber: 2 grams
  • Sugar: 7 grams

How to Prepare Blueberries

Blueberries are native to temperate parts of North America. They are traditionally in season from April to September in the US, but are sold year-round as imports from South America. These tasty berries can be found in supermarkets, health food stores, and farmers’ markets around the country. Blueberries bring a mild, sweet flavor that’s perfect for baked goods and desserts. You can also enjoy raw blueberries by themselves as simple healthy snacks. Blueberries last longer if they’re refrigerated or frozen, and they can be added in fresh or frozen form to most recipes with similar results. Here are some suggestions for how to add blueberries to your daily diet:

Here are some suggestions for how to add blueberries to your daily diet:

  • Eat blueberries raw as a snack.
  • Bake a blueberry pie.
  • Add blueberries to smoothies.
  • Make blueberry juice.
  • Include blueberries in pancakes.
  • Dry blueberries for a raisin-like treat.
  • Make a blueberry gazpacho.

What Is a Plum?

Plums belong to the same family as peaches, nectarines, and apricots. But plums are much more diverse than their stone-fruit cousins. They can be large or small, with red, purple, green, yellow, or orange skin, and pink, yellow, or orange flesh. They first grew in China thousands of years ago. Then plums made their way to Japan, parts of Europe, and America. Today, more than 2,000 varieties grow all over the world.

Plum Health Benefits

The vitamin C in plums helps your body heal, build muscle, and form blood vessels. It's great for your eyes, too. Here are other ways that plums are good for your health:

  • Heart disease. Phytochemicals and nutrients in plums lower the inflammation that triggers heart disease.
  • Anxiety. A plum a day may keep anxiety away. When your antioxidants are low, anxiety can be high.
  • Constipation Relief. Plums, like prunes, can also help keep things moving through your system. They have a lot of sorbitol, a sugar alcohol that acts as a natural laxative.
  • High blood pressure and stroke. The potassium in plums is good for blood pressure control in two ways. It helps your body get rid of sodium when you pee, and it lessens tension in the walls of your blood vessels. When your blood pressure is lower, your odds of getting a stroke go down.
  • Rich in antioxidants. These substances protect the body against the cell and tissue damage that can lead to diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and cancer.
  • Reduce blood sugar. Plums are chock full of fiber, which helps slow down a blood sugar spike after you eat carbs. They can also boost your body’s production of adiponectin, a hormone that helps regulate your blood sugar levels.
  • Bone health. Research on animals shows prunes (dried plums) may help reduce bone loss, and may even reverse it.

Plum Nutrition

  • Calories: 76
  • Protein: 1 gram
  • Fat: Less than 1 gram
  • Carbohydrates: 18 grams
  • Fiber: 2 grams
  • Sugar: 16 grams

Plum Preparation

You'll find plums in the grocery store and at farmers markets from May to October, though their peak season is July to August. Look for firm plums that have a slight "give" when you squeeze them gently. If your plum ripens before you're ready to eat it, put it in the fridge. If you need it to ripen quickly, keep your plum in a paper bag at room temperature overnight or up to 3 days.

What Is an Apple?

An apple is a crunchy, bright-colored fruit, one of the most popular in the United States. You’ve probably heard the age-old saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Although eating apples isn’t a cure-all, it is good for your health. European settlers brought apples with them to the Americas. They preferred them to North America’s native crabapple, a small, tarter fruit.

Plum Health Benefits

Apples can do a lot for you, thanks to plant chemicals called flavonoids. And they have pectin, a fiber that breaks down in your gut. If you take off the apple’s skin before eating it, you won’t get as much of the fiber or flavonoids. The fiber can slow digestion so you feel fuller after eating. This can keep you from overeating. Eating fiber-rich foods helps control symptoms and lessens the effects of acid reflux. An apple’s fiber can also help with diarrhea and constipation. Some studies show that plant chemicals and the fiber of an apple peel protect against blood vessel and heart damage. They also can help lower your cholesterol, and they might protect your cells’ DNA from something called oxidative damage, which is one of the things that can lead to cancer. Research shows the antioxidants in apples can slow the growth of cancer cells. And they can protect the cells in your pancreas, which can lower your chances of type 2 diabetes.

Apple Nutrition

Apples are low in sodium, fat, and cholesterol. They don’t offer protein, but apples are a good source of vitamin C and fiber.

One medium apple has about:

  • 100 calories
  • 25 grams of carbohydrates
  • 4 grams of fiber
  • 19 grams of sugar
  • A variety of strong antioxidants

Risks Although apples do have health benefits, eating too many of them (like anything) can be bad for you. Too much fruit can cause you to gain weight. There are a few others things to keep in mind: Pesticides. Apples are one of the fruits that have high pesticide residues because bugs and disease are more likely to affect them. It’s always best to wash fruit like apples before you eat them. Seeds. You might’ve also heard that eating apple seeds or the core is bad for you. The seeds do have chemicals that turn into cyanide in your body, but you would have to crush and eat many seeds for them to harm you. In fact, an average adult would have to eat at least 150 crushed seeds for a risk of cyanide poisoning. The seeds are actually rich in protein and fiber. Interactions. Apple juice can interact with the allergy drug fexofenadine (Allegra). The juice makes the medicine hard for your body to absorb.

How to Buy and Prepare Apples

When you’re buying apples, make sure they feel firm and heavy. The skin shouldn’t have bruises, cuts, or soft spots. Make sure to store apples in your refrigerator to keep them fresh longer. They can be stored at room temperature, but they’ll ripen much faster. When you eat an apple, leave the skin on because it has more than half of the apple's fiber.

Get the Health Benefits of Fruit

Fruit Won't Make You Fat

Because fruit contains natural sugars, many widely followed diet plans recommend avoiding it or at least severely limiting it. But the sugars in cantaloupe or peaches, say, don’t have the same negative effects on the body as high-fructose corn syrup of other types of sugars added to foods.
“Although the natural sugar in fruit is chemically similar to table sugar, our bodies process whole fruit differently because of the fiber, phytochemicals, and micronutrients,” says Hannah Meier, R.D., research associate at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston. “Fiber slows the rate that the natural sugars are released into the bloodstream, preventing the spikes and crashes that might otherwise be experienced after eating a sugary treat.”


Even people with diabetes should eat fruit.

“We tell diabetics to be mindful of portion sizes of fruit and count them as part of their carbohydrate intake,” Hunnes says. “But overly limiting fruit is dangerous because you’re cutting out vitamins, minerals, fiber, and extra water you could be getting in your diet.”

Fruit Is Packed With Nutrients

When it comes to nutritional bang for your buck, fruit is hard to beat.
“All fruits are high in fiber and potassium, and most are also good sources of vitamins A and C, folate, and a wide variety of phytochemicals,” says Nicola M. McKeown, Ph.D., a nutritional epidemiologist at Tufts.
Phyto­chemicals such as anthocyanins and other flavonoids, which are potent antioxidants, may have a variety of benefits, including better heart and brain health and a reduced risk of cancer.
According to the Department of Agriculture, when fruit is consumed in the recommended amounts, it contributes 16 percent of our recommended fiber intake and 17 percent of our potassium. Typical American diets are low in these nutrients.
Frozen fruit is as nutritious as fresh, provided it contains no added sugars. Same goes for canned fruit—look forthose packed in their own juice, not sugar-laden syrup. Fiber helps you maintain a healthy weight, can improve cholesterol levels, and keeps your digestive system running smoothly.

It's Good for Your Heart

“Obesity and high blood pressure are the two main risk factors for heart disease,” Rimm says. “And fruit intake has been linked to lowering the risk of both. For example, trials have shown that you can get a 20 to 25 percent reduction in risk of heart disease by replacing two servings of starchy vegetables or refined carbo­hydrates with two servings of fruit a day.”
The potassium in fruit helps account for the strong association between increased fruit intake and a lower risk of high blood pressure.
But it’s not just one nutrient in fruit that makes a difference. Anthocyanins reduced the risk of hypertension by 8 to 12 percent in people who consumed the most in a 14-year study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
These compounds have been shown to ­improve vascular function—reducing inflam­ma­tion in the vessels and improving blood flow. And the impact of increasing your fruit ­intake on blood pressure can be quick. “In some of our research, we’ve seen reduc­tions within three months of dietary change,” Rimm says.