Health benefits and Usages of Red Raspberry

Now is the Summer time in Finland. After a long and cold winter, the sun has come back to Finland. At this time, Finland is so beautiful with a lot of sunshine and the nature is so amazing. In summer, I usually spend a lot of time to wander around the forest and collect red raspberries. I like the wide red raspberries more than the grown raspberries because they are fresher and have excellent taste. Moreover, the wide berries are free in Finland. Whenever I have free time, I will go to forest and collect as much berries as I can. In the good day for picking red raspberries, I can collect 1 kg of red raspberry after 3 hours in the forest.  

Red raspberries are rich in Vitamin C, manganese, dietary fiber, vitamins B. This amazing fruit contains a high amount of antioxidant such as queretin, gallic acid that fight against cancer, heart circulatory disease and age-related decline. According to the tests conducted at the Hollings Cancer Center at the Medical University of South Carolina, the human body readily absorbs the ellagic acid from red raspberries. This ellagic acid helps our body to prevent cancer by inhibiting the abnormal division of cells which promoting the normal death of healthy cells. The ellagic acid in red raspberry causes apoptosis (cell death) in certain cancer cells.

Moreover, red raspberries also inhibit the production of COX-I and COX-II enzymes. COX-I and COX-II resulting in the reduction of pain associated with arthritis, gout and other inflammatory conditions.

Nutraceutical Value  Red Raspberry
Anthocyanins	20-65 mg/100 g
Ellagic Acid	3.39 mg/g dry wt
ORAC	24 umole TE/g
Salicylic Acid	5 mg/100g
Quercetin	12 mg/100g
Catechins	83 mg/100g

Source: Oregon Raspberry & Blackberry Commission

 With many health benefits, red raspberries are used for:

• Fresh or frozen fruit: eating whole red raspberries is the best method to consume the nutrition and health benefits from red raspberries. The scientist has proved that consume the whole red raspberries is more beneficial than taking individual phytochemicals in the form of dietary supplements.
• The red raspberry leaves are full of mineral and vitamin A, E, C and complex B vitamin. All of these vitamins strengthen our body immune system.  You can use the fresh leave or dried leaves to make raspberry leaf tea. The raspberry leaf tea has lots benefits such as throat gargles, morning sickness remedies, and fertility.
• Red raspberry seed oil is used in cosmetic industry because it is rich in Vitamin E, omega-3 fatty acid and has a sun protection factor (SPF) of 24-50.
• Red raspberries are great fruit to make low sugar red raspberry jam and red raspberry healthy drinks.

As I collected a lot of red raspberry in summer time and I did not want to waste my fresh red raspberry. I have tried and tested many different ways to use red raspberries such as: testing red raspberry healthy drinks, making red raspberry leaves tea, cooking raspberry jam. In my coming posts in this month I will share with you what and how do I use red raspberries.

In short, the best way to use red raspberries is eating the fresh one. Your body can absorb many antioxidants if you eat the whole red raspberry. The red raspberry leaves can be used as special herb tea. This herb tea can strengthen your immune systems. And don’t forget to make your own red raspberry jam. Believe me, red raspberry jam is the best jam ever. When you do it, you can see a very big difference between homemade jam and the jam you buy in super market. 

Here is some general information about the red raspberry’s health benefits and how to use it. Do you like this post or not? Tell me what you think about it. Thank you for spending time with me and see you again in later post about red raspberries.

References

Berry Healthy Network.  ‘‘Health and Healing Fact Sheets: Red Raspberries’’. Berryhealth.fst.oregonstate.edu. Web August 1, 2013

http://berryhealth.fst.oregonstate.edu/health_healing/fact_sheets/red_raspberry_facts.htm

Local harvet. ‘‘Red raspberry leave tea’’. localharvest.org. Web August 6, 2013

http://www.localharvest.org/red-raspberry-leaf-tea-C6483