Is it just me or does it seem like the harder a fruit’s name is to pronounce, the more health benefits it contains?
The current fad of exotic superfruits has led scientists in Australia on a “next big thing” hunt. Funded by “Food Science Australia” scientists took a look at 12 different native fruits in the hope of finding, what lead author Michael Netzela called, a new “source bioactive phytochemicals for application in health promoting foods.”
The fruits were studied by a team at The Ohio State University and measured against blueberries, the current wonder-berry when it comes to antioxidants. Early findings indicate that at least two of these fruits have higher antioxidant levels per gram than blueberries.
The question now becomes how viable are these new fruits? Do they offer any other nutrients or health benefits? And most importantly – do they taste good?! No matter how healthy something is, if it doesn’t taste good, it just isn’t going to have the mass appeal of blueberries.
But that doesn’t mean that in the near future you won’t see these 12 Australian fruits appearing in the produce aisle:
— Riberries — Brush cherry — Muntries — Illawarra plum — Burdekin plum — Cedar Bay cherry — Davidson’s plum — Molucca raspberry — Finger lime — Kakadu plum — Tasmanian Pepper
Say those twelve times fast.
And until these new fruits catch the eye of a marketing genius and flood the aisles of North American grocery stores, good old blueberries are still among the top fruits for antioxidant power.