Dried Cranberries: Health Benefits, Nutrition Facts, and Potential for Boosting Gut Health
Cranberries are popularly known as delicious holiday fruit. However, there is much more to this fruit than one might think. While these nutritious berries are mostly harvested during the fall season, they are available all year as dried cranberries. That way, you can easily enjoy its flavorful taste and various health benefits whenever you want. With that, in this article, we will look into where you can get dried cranberries in Singapore and how they can help boost your immune system!
Are dried cranberries healthy?
Cranberries themselves have a handful of health benefits. Not only do they help with your blood sugar, but they also help improve cardiovascular health as well as urinary tract health.
Dried cranberries are a dehydrated variant of the fruit and are typically eaten on their own or mixed into salads or trail mix. Known for their tart taste and acidity, dried cranberries are typically sweetened with sugar or an alternative. However, dried cranberries are typically higher in sugar. Dried cranberries contain the following nutrients (per half cup):
- Carories - 246
- Carbohydrates - 66 g
- Fat - 0.9 g
- Potassium - 40 mg
- Fiber - 4.2 g
- Sugar - 58 g
- Sodium - 0.4 mg
Dried cranberries are rich in vitamin C and are a good source of dietary fiber, making it easy to maintain body weight. and can provide you with your daily value of iron, and vitamins C and A. In addition, dried cranberries also contain vitamin B, which helps regulate metabolism and cellular energy.
These dehydrated fruits provide sufficient potassium for an adult’s daily requirement, along with beneficial anthocyanin and flavonoid antioxidants. Furthermore, dried cranberries also contain phosphorus, copper, iron, calcium, magnesium, and zinc.
What Happens If You Eat Dried Cranberries Every Day?
Knowing all the nutrients dried cranberries have, what are their effects when someone consumes them daily?
Boosts the immune system
Consuming enough cranberries provides enough vitamin C, which helps enhance iron absorption and works as an immune system booster by helping the production of white blood cells. Additionally, vitamin C helps with body tissue growth and development, as well as removing toxins from your system.
Maintains heart health
Known for their high levels of potassium, dried cranberries help maintain normal blood pressure. These also help promote cardiac muscle activity, decrease amounts of bad LDL cholesterol, and increase good HDL cholesterol levels. Because of this, dried cranberries help prevent heart attacks and strokes.
Anti-Muscle Cramps
The magnesium found in dried cranberries helps with optimal muscle function and provides relief from muscle soreness and cramps.
Combats Constipation
The dietary fibers in dried cranberries help ensure proper bowel movements and regulate kidney function by filtering out all the toxic waste and assimilating the required nutrients when consuming food.
Fortifies Bones
Dried cranberries also contain calcium, which is absorbed by the bones in our body. These help maintain optimal bone density, which helps with everyday activities. In addition, the high amounts of potassium also help enhance mineral uptake by cells and tissues in the body.
Combats Urinary Tract Infection (UTI)
Apart from boosting the immune system, the vitamin C in dried cranberries also assists with providing anti-inflammatory properties that reduce the swelling in the bladder. Along with this, its antioxidant properties are also useful in removing detrimental free radicals and harmful bacteria from the body. Because of this, it ensures the proper elimination of wastes from the body, leaving no unnecessary food residues and preventing their accumulation in the system.
Helps Combat Anemia
Cranberries are known to combat low iron levels, which can help with anemia, the lack of adequate red blood cells in one’s body. This deficiency makes your body unable to transport nutrients and oxygen to all cells and tissues. Consuming healthy amounts of cranberries helps increase iron in the blood, red blood cell synthesis, and blood passage. It is not an immediate and direct solution and should be supplemented with one's own medication.
*Please note that you should consult a medical professional as these are not solutions to all issues.
Get Your Daily Dose of Dried Cranberries with Foodsterr
Now that we know how much cranberries can do for you, it seems like a no-brainer to want to consume this fruit daily . However, with so much to do in a day and so little time, how can you ensure the proper intake? Luckily, Foodsterr offers these nutritional antioxidants readily available, dried, and in a resealable pack. Making these Ruby Dried Cranberries easily accessible whenever you need them, at any time of the day.
At Foodsterr, we understand that health is a precious gift of nature that comes second to none. That is why we strive to harvest and prepare the best ingredients that help you take care of yourselves without doing any extra work. Shop at Foodsterr and invest in your health today!