Who doesn’t love a handful of fresh blueberries on cereal or a scoop of frozen blueberries in a smoothie?
Blueberries are well known for their positive health benefits, particularly their high antioxidant content. There are 2 main types of blueberries, wild and cultivated. Let’s see how these compare from a nutritional standpoint.
The role of antioxidants are to protect our bodies from harmful byproducts of metabolism know as free radicals. Without the help of antioxidants these free radicals could cause cell damage and lead to cancer and other diseases.
Blueberries are designed so that they have a lot of antioxidants in their skin. This is to protect the berry from the damaging rays of the sun. These antioxidants are responsible for the dark blue color of the berries skin. The darker the color the more antioxidants.
The main difference between wild and cultivated blueberries is the size. Wild blueberries tend to be smaller. This means that wild blueberries have more surface area and more skin than cultivated blueberries. One cup of wild blueberries may contain 60 fruit where as one cup of cultivated blueberries may only contain 20. The greater amount of skin is the reason wild blueberries are higher in antioxidants than cultivated.
Cultivated blueberries are still among the top of the list for high antioxidant foods, but if you really want those antioxidants choose wild!
