If you pick up any health and beauty magazine and read an article written about the health benefits of a certain food, the likelihood is that you will see a specific term – “superfood”. This is a term that has been coined by health experts in the last five years or so to describe any of the raw foods on the market that have great essential health benefits. High vitamin, antioxidant and omega 3 foods are the ones commonly referred to as superfoods. This is not a scientific term, but is extremely apt considering that all of the food that the tag has been given to can be of immense benefit to your health. The blueberry is one of the foods that the tag has been given to, but is that really an accurate perception of the little berry?

Many health experts that are not affiliated with health magazines dispute that there are such superfoods, stating that the term is commercialised and has no factual basis. They argue that it has been designated to foods to denote potentially unhealthy crazes or fads. However, you only have to look at the actual health benefits of the blueberry to see that their argument does not hold. The term is definitely used to identify health crazes, but this does not mean that foods tarred with it will simply be short-lived fads. The blueberry is as far from a super fad as you could possibly get when you consider its illustrious history.

The blueberry is native to the United States and has been used for centuries as a source of medicine and food by Native Americans. They swore by the properties of the blueberry for curing coughs and colds, but its uses were seemingly limitless. Blueberry tonics were used to relax expectant mothers in childbirth and many Natives believed that it had the ability to cleanse the blood and sustain good health beyond their expected years of life. They consumed blueberries every day, recognising their nutritional value as well as their medicinal value. As a result, the blueberry was a staple of their diet for both medicinal and nutritional reasons.

Blueberries have not suddenly become popular overnight. They can be traced back at least four hundred years and have been popular in society throughout that period. The only difference there is between the way we perceive the blueberry today and the way that the Natives perceived it is that we actually have laboratory research to back up the health benefits of the blueberry. It is packed full of antioxidants that are proven to prevent disease, improve the memory and boost the immune system, amongst other things, and also has 30% of our recommended daily dose of vitamin C in every portion. As a zero fat, low calorie and high fibre food, the blueberry ticks all of the necessary boxes and should receive the praise it fully deserves.

Blueberries are definitely more superfood than super fad. Fads do not have the longevity that the blueberry has enjoyed. The label of superfood has only served to alert people to the health benefits of the blueberry and highlight the fact that we are not eating enough of them in our daily diet. This can only be a good thing in terms of the future. Why not make the most of its healthy goodness and see how it can improve your inner and outer beauty?

You are hereby granted permission to use these articles in your newsletters or website as long as the resource information below is included in it’s entirety with the article.

Sam Serio is a true blue devotee of the blueberry and a life long student of health and nutrition. Sam Serio is also the producer of the Annual Chincoteague Blueberry Festival which is held the third weekend of July on the beautiful island of Chincoteague in Virginia. This midsummer celebration of nature’s tastiest and most healthy gift – the Blueberry is combined with a “Christmas in July” Craft Shopping Extravaganza the premier Fine Art and Craft event on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. For more information, please visit http://www.ChincoteagueBlueberryFestival.com and pick up your free e-book entitled “A Healthy Taste for Blueberries”. This free special report reveals everything you ever wanted to know about blueberries, but were afraid to ask. Also includes recipes, beauty secrets, health benefits and much more. Get yours now at http://www.ChincoteagueBlueberryFestival.com.

In recent months, blueberries have been regularly hitting the news as the super food of the moment. Experts everywhere have been espousing their virtues as the research reports confirming their amazing properties have rolled in. However, those reports only served to confirm what health experts have known for years as a result of their ancestors. Blueberries have been used for food, medicine and home made beauty products since Columbus first discovered America in 1492 so there extraordinary health benefits are nothing new.

One area of research that is worth noting though concerns the blueberry and improved memory. US universities have been testing the blueberry to confirm that the fruit has a dramatic yet positive impact on mental health and fitness. However, it was the University of Barcelona that succeeded in proving that there is a correlation between blueberry consumption and an improved memory. Their findings are simply astonishing.

The experiment behind the blueberry for improved memory study was actually performed on rats. All rats were older and had experienced some form of metal degeneration. They were fed blueberries for two months and by the end of that period, they were moving much more quickly and had much improved coordination and balance. The blueberries had actually stimulated the growth of new brain cells to replace those that had been lost, and the fruit can have the same impact on us humans!

Blueberries contain compounds and substance called antioxidants, which are also known as anthocyanins. They have many great properties but can really help to improve any individual’s memory. The rats fed the blueberries were found to have those substances in their brains, whereas the rats that were not fed the blueberries didn’t. It effectively crosses the blood/brain barrier and settles in the centres of the brain that enable us to learn and remember details. Even if your brain is old and tired, blueberries can revitalize it and effectively reverse the aging process!

It is hoped that blueberries can be used for their properties in the future as a cure for mental degenerative conditions and illnesses such as dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease. Although it is not yet known what actually causes those illnesses, the age-defying blueberries may be developed into a substance that can treat it at its root. If it can improve memory and reverse the effects of age, why can’t it do the same for people that are going through more severe forms of the aging process? Only time will tell!

Who would have thought that the blueberry could enable an old dog to learn new tricks? They not only prevent free radicals within our bodies from attacking and breaking down cells, but they can also replace what has been lost with age. They can even improve the memory above and beyond what it was capable off before. Of course, this is the result of a cumulative effect that has to be built up over a period of time, but it appears that anything is possible with the blueberry. It is truly a super food!

You are hereby granted permission to use these articles in your newsletters or website as long as the resource information below is included in it’s entirety with the article.

Sam Serio is a true blue devotee of the blueberry and a life long student of health and nutrition. Sam Serio is also the producer of the Annual Chincoteague Blueberry Festival which is held the third weekend of July on the beautiful island of Chincoteague in Virginia. This midsummer celebration of nature’s tastiest and most healthy gift – the Blueberry is combined with a “Christmas in July” Craft Shopping Extravaganza the premier Fine Art and Craft event on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. For more information, please visit http://www.ChincoteagueBlueberryFestival.com and pick up your free e-book entitled “A Healthy Taste for Blueberries”. This free special report reveals everything you ever wanted to know about blueberries, but were afraid to ask. Also includes recipes, beauty secrets, health benefits and much more. Get yours now at http://www.ChincoteagueBlueberryFestival.com.

If you know a hamster with a cholesterol problem, turn it loose in the blueberry patch.

And if you’re concerned about maintaining your own cholesterol at healthy levels, follow the hamster.

What’s in the blueberry patch? Pterostilbenes. And what are those?

Pterostilbenes are plant compounds similar in chemical structure to the reservatrol found in red grapes and thought responsible for the cholesterol-lowering effects of red wine.

The glitch with reservatrol and red wine, however, is that they are accompanied by alcohol, and that, for some people, can be a deal-breaker. If only there were a natural substitute which would perform as well as reservatrol in lowering levels of bad cholesterol and raising levels of good cholesterol…

So Dr. Agnes Rimando, and a team of researchers with the University of Mississippi’s Natural Products Utilization Research Unit, set out to find just such a compound. Pterostilbene was among their most promising three candidates; the performances of all three, and that of reservatrol, were measured against the cholesterol-fighting prescription drug Ciprofibrate.

The researchers tested all four compounds on a group of “hypercholseterolic” hamsters. Of all of them, pterostilbene had Ciprofibrate spinning like one of the hamsters on its wheel.

The lucky hamsters who had pterostilbene added to their diets at a concentration of 25 parts-per-million had their LDL “bad” cholesterol drop an average of 29%, their HDL “good” cholesterol increase 7%, and their plasma glucose (sugar) levels fall 14%. Their ratio of bad-to-good cholesterol was also lowered “significantly”.

The research indicated that pterostilbene outperformed Ciprofibrate by more accurately targeting those receptor protein cells in the hamsters’ livers responsible for lowering cholesterol. In addition, because it was more selective in the cells it targeted, pterostilbene caused neither of Ciprofibrate’s unpleasant side effects, nausea and muscle pain.

Because it so dramatically lowered the hamsters’ LDL cholesterol, pterostilbene may have potential as a weapon in the fight against arteriosclerosis–hardening of the arteries. Arteriosclerosis is one of the leading causes of heart attacks.

Dr. Rimando had already discovered from earlier research that one of the most bountiful sources of peterostilbenes was the Vacccinium genus of berries. Of those berries, blueberries had the most pterostilbenes.

The news made blueberry consumption, which had been a summertime tradition in the United States for decades, an international phenomenon. Great Britain, in particular, began phoning in its orders, and the amount of U.S. blueberries exported to the United Kingdom rose 1100% from 2004 to 2005. At least two British newspapers attribute the blueberry craze directly to Dr. Rimando’s findings.

Dr. Rimando is continuing her research into pterostilbenes and the other phtyonutrients found in blueberries.

Will blueberries do for people what they did for the cholesterol-burdened hamsters? No one knows yet, so no one knows how many blueberries one would have to consume each day to see any kind of cholesterol-lowering effect. But we do know this much: blueberries may do what red wine does, without the alcohol. Blueberries may also do what Ciprofibrate does, without the side effects.

And they taste much better in pancakes, muffins, and pie.

You are hereby granted permission to use these articles in your newsletters or website as long as the resource information below is included in it’s entirety with the article.

Sam Serio is a true blue devotee of the blueberry and a life long student of health and nutrition. Sam Serio is also the producer of the Annual Chincoteague Blueberry Festival which is held the third weekend of July on the beautiful island of Chincoteague in Virginia. This midsummer celebration of nature’s tastiest and most healthy gift – the Blueberry is combined with a “Christmas in July” Craft Shopping Extravaganza the premier Fine Art and Craft event on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. For more information, please visit http://www.ChincoteagueBlueberryFestival.com and pick up your free e-book entitled “A Healthy Taste for Blueberries”. This free special report reveals everything you ever wanted to know about blueberries, but were afraid to ask. Also includes recipes, beauty secrets, health benefits and much more. Get yours now at http://www.ChincoteagueBlueberryFestival.com.

Picture sky-blue tights and cape, leaf-green spandex shorts, and the emblem of a five-pointed, chartreuse star decorating a deep blue-violet shirt. And you’d have the perfect uniform for the latest member of the Superfoods Squad, the unassuming blueberry.

It’s not that we’ve exactly ignored blueberries, like Lois Lane–if only she had known–ignored Clark Kent and his all-concealing spectacles for her favorite blue-and-scarlet clad superhero.

Blueberries, in fact, have been given their own month in the U.S. The United States Department of Agriculture, on May 8, 1999, declared that July would be National Blueberry Month. Then-Secretary-of-Agriculture Dan Glickman encouraged all Americans “to recognize and celebrate the highbush blueberry with appropriate ceremonies and activities. “

Even before they were commercially cultivated in America–in fact, even before America was called America–blueberries were one of the staple nutritional and medicinal components of the Native American diet.

Legend has it the Native American tribes of New England and the Atlantic seaboard were already aware of blueberries’ potential, calling them “Star Berries” both for the perfectly-shaped five-point star formed at the blossom end of each ripening berry, and for the year-around sustenance they provided as fresh and dried fruit..

The Native Americans were very familiar with blueberries’ health benefits. They brewed an astringent from the roots of the highbush blueberry, and a tea to treat bowel conditions, or to use as a blood tonic. They gave the blueberry-based tonic to women as a relaxant during childbirth, and used its juice as a cough medicine.

But, even though the American colonists witnessed all of these uses, blueberries remained a wild fruit until the 20th century, when they began to be cultivated, not for their health potential, but for their flavor. Thanks to the work of Dr. Frederick Coville and Elizabeth White in the early 1900’s, the Native American’s wild highbush blueberries were transformed into the plump, tender, juicy, and easily gathered fruit which stocks produce shelves today.

Blueberries soon became synonymous with summer, showing up in pancakes, muffins, shortcakes, pies, and even ice cream. But it wasn’t until the 1990s that research began to reveal the wisdom of the Native Americans by uncovering the amazing nutritional potency of these tiny blue-violet botanical jewels.

Blueberries have the highest anti-oxidant content, pound for pound, of any fresh fruit or vegetable yet known. Antioxidants–Vitamins C, A, and E, and beta-carotene–are powerful agents in fighting the free radicals which can lead to cancer and age-related infirmities.
Blueberries are also rich in the essential minerals magnesium, potassium, and manganese; a terrific source of fiber; and have very little sodium, saturated fat, or cholesterol.

The superfood blueberry not only has the goods; it delivers them. Blueberry nutrients actually cross the blood-brain barrier in amounts sufficient to be effective. And a study from the University of Barcelona indicates that blueberries may lower cholesterol, combat urinary tract infections, and improve both eye and cardiovascular health.

This year, when National Blueberry Month arrives, the newly-recognized Superfood Superstar blueberry should get a hero’s ovation!

You are hereby granted permission to use these articles in your newsletters or website as long as the resource information below is included in it’s entirety with the article.

Sam Serio is a true blue devotee of the blueberry and a life long student of health and nutrition. Sam Serio is also the producer of the Annual Chincoteague Blueberry Festival which is held the third weekend of July on the beautiful island of Chincoteague in Virginia. This midsummer celebration of nature’s tastiest and most healthy gift – the Blueberry is combined with a “Christmas in July” Craft Shopping Extravaganza the premier Fine Art and Craft event on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. For more information, please visit http://www.ChincoteagueBlueberryFestival.com and pick up your free e-book entitled “A Healthy Taste for Blueberries”. This free special report reveals everything you ever wanted to know about blueberries, but were afraid to ask. Also includes recipes, beauty secrets, health benefits and much more. Get yours now at http://www.ChincoteagueBlueberryFestival.com.

Did you know that the blueberry is one of the most underrated fruits commonly available to us today? It has a long and illustrious history in America but yet the majority of us do not count it amongst our favorite foods. When you look at the health benefits we really should. There’s nothing like a good portion of tasty, juicy blueberries to treat our taste buds and help our bodies to stay as healthy as possible.

In this day and age, there is always going to be press reports about how certain foods are bad for your health, even if it was previously considered to be good for you. Blueberries, on the other hand, you can feel completely safe with. As one of nature’s little gems, it can provide many health benefits that manufactured foods cannot.

The US Department of Agriculture has recently revealed that wild blueberries actually provide more natural antioxidants than any other fruit, including their cultivated relatives (although cultivated blueberries are number two on the list). They have more than three times the antioxidant agent that apples do and are less than a tenth of the size individually! This simply serves to highlight how beneficial blueberries are to our health, especially when we examine exactly what antioxidants do within our bodies.

The antioxidants found in blueberries actively fight free radicals, the substances that are produced within the body in increasing amounts as we get older and cause irrevocable cell damage as well as affecting our DNA. Both of these side effects of the free radicals may enable diseases such as cancer to occur and spread more easily. However, as the blueberries’ antioxidants neutralize the free radicals within the body, they actually promote health and may go some way to helping our immune system to prevent and fight off such threats.

The antioxidants that blueberries contain have a wide range of other benefits, such as prevention of urinary tract infections and overall memory improvement, but they are not limited to the health properties that the antioxidants promote. 140 grams of blueberries actually only contains 1 gram of fat, and all of it is healthy fat that is used by the body to maintain healthy tissue rather than the saturated fat that the body cannot use.

The blueberry is completely healthy as far as nutritional content is concerned. They contain no salt (listed as sodium on nutritional content tables) nor cholesterol, both of which have well documented adverse affects on the collective health of the nation these days and can serious put our individual health in jeopardy. The 140-gram portion of blueberries also contains 2% of our recommended daily iron intake as well as 15% of the Vitamin C daily recommendation.

The overall health benefits of the blueberry make it one of the most invaluable tools in our personal arsenal in the war against disease. In fact, in terms of long term benefits, blueberries are by far the best fruit, and even food in general, to consume and make an integral part of your diet. After all, can we really afford not to make the most of one of nature’s tastiest and most healthy gifts?

You are hereby granted permission to use these articles in your newsletters or website as long as the resource information below is included in it’s entirety with the article.

Sam Serio is a true blue devotee of the blueberry and a life long student of health and nutrition. Sam Serio is also the producer of the Annual Chincoteague Blueberry Festival which is held the third weekend of July on the beautiful island of Chincoteague in Virginia. This midsummer celebration of nature’s tastiest and most healthy gift – the Blueberry is combined with a “Christmas in July” Craft Shopping Extravaganza the premier Fine Art and Craft event on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. For more information, please visit http://www.ChincoteagueBlueberryFestival.com and pick up your free e-book entitled “A Healthy Taste for Blueberries”. This free special report reveals everything you ever wanted to know about blueberries, but were afraid to ask. Also includes recipes, beauty secrets, health benefits and much more. Get yours now at http://www.ChincoteagueBlueberryFestival.com.

Before America grew into the massive Superpower it is today, Native Americans enjoyed the natural land and worshipped it because it sustained them and gave them everything they needed to be able to live. The collected plants and berries to make medicines, remedies and potions to cure any illness to came their way. One of the main ingredients of their potions and medicines was the blueberry. It had many medicinal properties that the Natives noticed and tapped into. They recognised that the blueberry could be used to fight against disease, and that is now a fact that laboratory testing has proven.

Blueberries are packed full of nutrients and substances that can fight off a range of diseases and infections. They are renowned for helping to protect an individual against cancer and heart disease, amongst other things, and this is largely due to the antioxidants packed into each blueberry. Antioxidants serve to combat the free radicals that circulate the body looking for healthy cells to attack. As soon as once perfectly healthy cells are broken down, the free radicals move on to another target and leave those cells open to further degradation and disease.

Blueberries do not equip your body to fight disease, although they can help if you are suffering from cancer, heart disease and the like. Instead, they enable your body to cut disease off at the root. If certain elements are not in place then conditions are not favourable for disease to break out in the first place. Put simply, the antioxidants in blueberries erect an effective barrier against disease in order to prevent it.

There are several essential substances that prevent disease and can be found in blueberries. The first is ellagic acid. This substance is plentiful in blueberries and can block some of the metabolic pathways that course through the body and do tend to lead to cancer. Another is resveratrol, which again can protect against cancer. This is one of the main agents that recent research by the US Agricultural Research Service has discovered can indeed cut occurrences of cancer, especially in women, in half. This blueberry chemical actually significantly reduces the growth of breast and cervical cancer cells.

It has been suggested that blueberries can also prevent neurological degenerative diseases. The antioxidants that are found within the blueberry are actually being used to treat Alzheimer, Parkinson’s and dementia patients to try and delay the onset of its full symptoms. They can delay memory loss and confusion because they actually fight against the degeneration of the nerve cells. Of course the damage is done so they can only hold the effects off for so long, but if they can achieve this then there is a good chance that the blueberry can help to prevent neurological degenerative diseases as well.

Blueberries can definitely help prevent disease. That fact has been proved beyond doubt by various research studies conducted over the last few years. It is simply amazing when you look at the size of the blueberry in relation to what it could actually enable you to do. Blueberries are not only healthy, but can enable you to live a long and fruitful life. Don’t underestimate their power!

You are hereby granted permission to use these articles in your newsletters or website as long as the resource information below is included in it’s entirety with the article.

Sam Serio is a true blue devotee of the blueberry and a life long student of health and nutrition. Sam Serio is also the producer of the Annual Chincoteague Blueberry Festival which is held the third weekend of July on the beautiful island of Chincoteague in Virginia. This midsummer celebration of nature’s tastiest and most healthy gift – the Blueberry is combined with a “Christmas in July” Craft Shopping Extravaganza the premier Fine Art and Craft event on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. For more information, please visit http://www.ChincoteagueBlueberryFestival.com and pick up your free e-book entitled “A Healthy Taste for Blueberries”. This free special report reveals everything you ever wanted to know about blueberries, but were afraid to ask. Also includes recipes, beauty secrets, health benefits and much more. Get yours now at http://www.ChincoteagueBlueberryFestival.com.

If you are one of the many people out there who vow to start a diet every Monday morning but find yourself slipping after just a few hours, you need to revolutionize your diet! Diets are incredibly hard to stick to if you do not find the right combination of food to tantalize your taste buds because it is easy to get bored. However, I would like to offer you a solution – the blueberry!

The blueberry is high on the list of the healthiest foods you could eat and has been for centuries. The amount of goodness that is packed into the blueberry is unique in the fruit world and could actively enhance your health and well being in so many ways. The blueberry is high in fibre, packed with antioxidants to fight free radicals within your body, low in calories and, best of all, is completely fat free! One serving of blueberries, about 140g in weight, can therefore provide the same health benefits as three of four apples.

This information may come as a shock to most people because restaurants and cafes have become adept at using blueberries in more unhealthy snacks in the last fifty years or so. This undoubtedly overshadows the blueberry’s healthy properties. For example, if asked to think of blueberry foods, most individuals would automatically think of muffins, pies, cobbler and the few blueberries that come with a chocolate-filled pancake at the local diner! However, if you can see past that, you will undoubtedly be able to stick to any healthy diet of your choosing!

Eating blueberries on a regular basis can revitalize your system, especially if you eat them for breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day because it serves to get your metabolism going, thus enabling your body to burn more calories and fat over the course of the day. Obviously this will not work if you then eat fried foods all day long, but as part of a balanced diet, blueberries can really kick start your system.

There are literally hundreds of ideas and recipes out there for breakfast time with blueberries so there is bound to be at least a handful you like. There are, of course, the obvious ones such as fruit salad, blueberries sprinkled on your cereal and natural yoghurt sweetened with blueberries and a touch of honey. Of course, all of these choices are healthy and taste great, but you should view breakfast as an opportunity to let your imagination, and your taste buds, run wild!

Use breakfast as an opportunity to try out new recipes. For example, you could try low-fat and low sugar blueberry pancakes with a fruity blueberry sauce over the top. You don’t need to worry about leaving the sugar out because the blueberries will sweeten the mixture as well as adding a bit of zest! Simply make your usual pancake mix but leave half of the usual amount of sugar out and add 200g of blueberries instead. To compliment that, you could put a handful of blueberries in the blender along with chopped apple, raspberries, a tablespoon of honey and a cup of natural yoghurt. Blend it until the mixture is smooth and then you have your own breakfast smoothie!

The recipes above are all quick and very tasty. However, you have license to experiment. Try making some of your own breakfast concoctions and, before long, I guarantee that you will find one you like! It isn’t hard to eat a healthy breakfast if you enjoy it so board the blueberry train!

You are hereby granted permission to use these articles in your newsletters or website as long as the resource information below is included in it’s entirety with the article.

Sam Serio is a true blue devotee of the blueberry and a life long student of health and nutrition. Sam Serio is also the producer of the Annual Chincoteague Blueberry Festival which is held the third weekend of July on the beautiful island of Chincoteague in Virginia. This midsummer celebration of nature’s tastiest and most healthy gift – the Blueberry is combined with a “Christmas in July” Craft Shopping Extravaganza the premier Fine Art and Craft event on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. For more information, please visit http://www.ChincoteagueBlueberryFestival.com and pick up your free e-book entitled “A Healthy Taste for Blueberries”. This free special report reveals everything you ever wanted to know about blueberries, but were afraid to ask. Also includes recipes, beauty secrets, health benefits and much more. Get yours now at http://www.ChincoteagueBlueberryFestival.com.