Hey everybody welcome back to explainer 5. Talk about the questions you always want to ask and talk about them in a way that's easy to understand. We are your hosts, I'm Tim. And I'm Kevin.
Kevin, today we're talking about blueberries. What is it that makes blueberries a superfood and how do their antioxidants benefit our health? So blueberries are packed with vitamins and fiber and particularly high levels of antioxidants known as flavonoids. And these antioxidants are the real heroes here.
That's because they fight off free radicals that can damage or sell and lead to diseases like cancer. So essentially eating blueberries is kind of like giving your body a shield against this damage and aging. Is there a nutritional difference between eating blueberries fresh and eating them frozen? Surprisingly, the freezing process can actually preserve the antioxidants in blueberries making frozen blueberries just as nutritious as fresh ones.
So in some cases, freezing even increases the concentration of some types of antioxidants. Most of the difference comes from the rightness at which the fruit is picked. So frozen produce can be picked when it's already ripe. Most non-frozen and fresh produce destined for the store is actually picked a little earlier when the fruit is still green, meaning it is not righted yet.
But this is done so that lasts longer in transport, but it often also makes it a little less sweet. Speaking about that sweetness and taste, why do some blueberries taste sweet while others are taught? The taste of blueberries can vary widely based on their ripeness and the variety. Generally, the sweeter blueberries are the ones that have fully ripened on the bush like we were just talking about in the case of frozen blueberries.
That's because these have had more time to develop their natural sugars. And the variety often also plays a huge role because some are bred for sweetness while others might have a more tart profile. Now there are a few different varieties of blueberries and we should explain how our blueberries cultivated and what are those different types. Yeah, so blueberries are cultivated in pretty carefully managed fields and it requires acidic soil to thrive.
So there are mainly three types. High bush, which are actually the most common in the United States, low bush or wild blueberries. They are smaller and richer in some antioxidants and also something called rabbit eye, which are grown in the southern United States. Each variety has its own unique taste and size, influenced by the growing conditions.
So it's the second category, the low bush blueberries and other ones which people called wild, which sometimes you see on packaging. Yeah, yeah, wild has really been adopted as a marketing term for harvests of managed native stands of low bush blueberries. And how about the European blueberry? How is that slightly different?
Those are different and they actually even have their own name. They're called billberries. And billberries are native to Europe and are not really the same as North American blueberries. Although the species are close related and belong to the same genus, Baxcidia.
Billberries grow singly or in pairs rather than in blueberry clusters. And blueberries have more evergreen leaves compared to billberries. Interesting. Now, how about the blue raspberry?
Why is there a blue raspberry flavor when apparently blue raspberries themselves don't really exist? Oh, yes. This is actually one of my favorite fun facts, the mystery of the blue raspberry. And that's because the blue raspberry originated in a lab, not on a farm.
So it actually stems from a need to differentiate raspberry flavored products from cherry and strawberry in the market because otherwise it will be red. So the flavor is inspired by the white bark raspberry, which actually has a bluish hue to it. Overall, it's more about marketing visual appeal than an actual blue raspberry fruit. But looking to the science of it, blueberries and raspberries do actually have the same pigment compounds called anthocyanins.
Blueberries are blue because they are less acidic. And if you add an acid like vinegar to crushed blueberries, they will turn red. While adding a base like baking soda will turn them to blue. You know, it does seem like blueberries have become so popular and so in demand that sometimes they are used in marketing even when they don't really exist or when the products actually don't contain blueberries.
And many products that claim to include blueberries actually only contain blueberry juice or imitations of blueberries. Imitation of blueberries often made of corn syrup and blue dye. So for example, I read that Kellogg's justified a lack of blueberries in one of their cereals by defining blueberry muffin as a flavor. As a flavor not as an ingredient, that's interesting.
And breakfast cereals do tend to do this quite a lot. Yep, yep. In Quakers' Insenomio with fruit pieces, the strawberries and peaches are actually dehydrated apples. And the blueberries are actually dehydrated figs.
Oh, very interesting. Now finally, the word bluetooth has a connection to blueberries through some Danish royalty, I believe. Oh, this is a good one to end on. So they say that the Danish king, Harold Blattan, ate so many blueberries that his teeth stained blue.
And bluetooth, as we know today, is named after him because of his achievement in uniting warring factions. He is a big claim of fame as he knighted what is now Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Uniting devices from different manufacturers and with different purposes, you know, like computers from Apple and Microsoft is kind of what bluetooth technology was invented for, right? And so that's why blueberries actually have a connection to bluetooth.
And next time, if you look closely at the bluetooth logo, you'll also notice that it is a combination of the king's runic initials, the H&B. Ah, we'll look out for that next time. Do you want something new? If you did, send us an email.
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