Turmeric. Beet juice. Goji. Chia seeds. We’re familiar with these highly-respected superfoods, ranking near the top of nutrition and overall health goodness.
One contender is quickly rising to prominence to challenge the best of the best superfoods: tart cherries.
From bars and juices to powders and supplements, more commercial goods are featuring the fruit with potent nutritional prowess. They’re especially good for athletes or highly-active individuals, due in large part to nutrients they pack, including iron, potassium, magnesium, folate, fiber and vitamins A, C and E. They also feature anthocyanins in abundance, an efficient antioxidant that fights inflammation and oxidative damage to body cells.
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The antioxidants are invaluable to athletes, especially ideal to consume after a workout, as studies suggest they repair and rebuild muscles that’ve suffered wear-and-tear during a workout session.
They’ve also been proven to reduce swelling in tired muscles, and generally assisting in the recovery from aches and pains linked to health conditions like arthritis and gout. Tart cherries offer benefits to cardiovascular health, too: they reduce the risk of metabolic syndrome and atherosclerosis, lower blood cholesterol levels, and lower triglycerides. These are all linked to heart disease, meaning there could be no better addition to your diet for heart health than this up-and-coming superfood.
Tart cherries are very easy to incorporate into any diet: they’re equally beneficial if you eat them fresh, freeze them for later to add to a smoothie, juiced into a, well, juice, or even in supplement form as tart cherry capsules or gummies.
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