BLUEBERRY RULES
These gorgeous deep purple beauties are rich in vitamin C and antioxidants, and are a wonderful source of soluble fiber – they also have low glycaemic load which means that they won’t cause big spikes in blood sugar levels.
Ingredients
- 800 g fresh blueberries
- 1 tbsp raw honey
Instructions
- Place the blueberries in a pan without any other liquid and gently bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for about 30 minutes stirring from time to time until there is a jam like consistency
- Add 1 tablespoon raw honey and let the mixture cool
- Once cooled place in a glass jar and keep in the fridge for at least 2 weeks
Notes
THE SCIENCE BIT
A study by the Department of Behavioural Neuroscience at the Oregon Health Sciences University has found that BLUEBERRIES that have been heated have significantly more antioxidant content than fresh blueberries. Even canned BLUEBERRIES had more antioxidants than fresh ones (nearly 3 times more!) as long as the liquid in the canned fruit was also consumed – canned berries are heated during processing – I am not advocating canned foods since there are lots of nasty chemicals in cans that we are best to avoid, but the outcome of the study intrigued me. Dried berries are convenient snacks but between 50% to 80% of the antioxidant status of the berries was lost during the drying process. Interestingly the quicker they were dried the more health benefits were maintained – traditional sun dried berries lost the most antioxidant value which was heartbreaking to hear! Time taken to thaw BLUEBERRIES from frozen also had a significant effect on antioxidant content – the quicker they were thawed the more antioxidants remained.
