The origin of strawberries & how they improve your life
The days are getting warmer, the sunsets are getting prettier and the vines of our gardens are blooming with blossoms and colorful varieties of fruits and vegetables! To me, eating fresh fruit ripened on the vine is a small taste of heaven!
My husband, son and I attended the 34th Annual Strawberry Festival this past weekend in Ojai, California where some of the best strawberries in the world are grown and shipped to markets everywhere. This festival is filled with great food, fun games and music, and of course DELICIOUS strawberries! Our mouths were permanently red with strawberry juice by the end of the day and I felt like my stomach was going to burst as it continued being filled with berry-deliciousness.
So, after experiencing another amazing encounter with the extraordinary strawberry, I decided to do some further research into where strawberries originated from and why they are continually praised for being a "life-giving" fruit.
The strawberry originated in the 1300's when the French began transplanting the wood strawberry (Fragaria vesca) from the wilderness to the garden. Before this, strawberries were only found in the wild on vines and had a very tough skin with either a sour or dull taste. During the 1500's and 1600's other strawberries were cultivated in Europe and eventually taken to England where gardeners raised new varieties of strawberries from seeds increasing the fruit to have more than thirty different types of strawberries.
In 1714, a French spy brought back a Chilean strawberry to France that was much larger than any other species of strawberries in Europe, but they discovered it could only be grown in coastal regions with mild climates.
Eventually, two new species of strawberries from Chile and Virginia were crossbred by the French to create our modern strawberry, the Fragaria ananassa.
This is a very short version of the history of the strawberry, but it is amazing to learn how this beautiful, juicy fruit we now love and desire for every picnic was at one time a sour, unlikely choice. As strawberries have developed over the centuries, there has been a new found love for their appearance, taste and health benefits.
The health benefits of strawberry consumption include antioxidants, folate, potassium, vitamin C and fiber. This is part of the reason why per capita consumption of strawberries has increased steadily since 1970, from just less than 3 pounds to over 6 pounds today. The proportion of fresh vs. frozen strawberries has also increased during this period.
So, whether you are eating strawberries ripe off the vine or adding them to a smoothie or salad, they can have many wonderful health benefits while also keeping your blood sugar steady and delighting your taste buds.
For a list of current varieties for the Northeast and their characteristics, here is a link to a Strawberry Variety Review by Dr. Courtney Weber at Cornell University: http://www.fruit.cornell.edu/berry/production/pdfs/strcultreview2012.pdf
