Picking Strawberries In The Sun

Picking Strawberries Is A Healthy Way To While Away The Hours ...

fields full of strawberry plants with strawberries waiting to be harvested

I spent a productive few hours on Saturday morning at our local ‘Pick Your Own’ filling punnets full of strawberries ...

I not only felt healthy walking up and down the strawberry field I also know I’m heading towards a healthy dessert ...

Although not SO healthy when I add the freshly picked strawberries to the Hagen-Das vanilla ice cream (could be worse ... I could just be complimenting the ice cream with hot chocolate sauce ... mmm ... maybe it should be strawberries, hot chocolate sauce and ice cream ...).

What Makes A Strawberry A Strawberry?
With over 600 different varieties of strawberries available, each different in taste, texture and size, strawberries are still easy to recognise with their distinctive:
• red flesh – although this is no longer strictly true; there are some more unusual varieties with yellow or white flesh
• yellow seeds covering the surface of the berry – there can be as many as 200 seeds in every strawberry
• small cap of green leaves.

P.S. the photo shows the strawberries I picked ... gorgeous eh?

picking the first strawberry, strawberry picking at the local pick your own

Why Are Strawberries Healthy?
Strawberries "rank as one of the world’s healthiest foods" according to the dietician Nigel Denby. He says they can "legitimately claim to be heart protective, anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory, all rolled into one".
• heart protective – with high levels of fibre, strawberries help to reduce the risk of heart disease.
• anti-cancer - strawberries are a rich source of phenols (especially anthocyanins and ellagitannius) that are powerful cancer-busting antioxidants.
• anti-inflammatory – the phenols in strawberries also help reduce the activity of the enzyme cyclo-oxygenase that can cause inflammation when over active.

strawberry ready to be picked on a strawberry plant

Strawberries are also healthy as they contain:

Omega-3 fatty acids – we’ve all been made conscious over the past few years of the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, the building blocks of brain tissue.

Vitamin C – traditionally we think of oranges as being a rich source of vitamin C but in fact just eight strawberries contain more vitamin C than one orange!

Vitamins B5, B6 and K – a rich source of all these vitamins.

Manganese, iodine, potassium, folate, riboflavin and copper – I don’t know why these are good for me ... but apparently they are!

And, strawberries are low in calories – you can happily scoff 100g of strawberries knowing that’s only 50 calories.
So ..o .o I don’t feel too bad about overindulging in strawberries this weekend ...

two strawberries growing together, one ripe strawberry and one strawberry still white

Strawberries Are The Most Popular Berries In The World
Yes, it’s true ... strawberries are the most popular berries in the world.
Strawberries have been in cultivation since BC. Highly prized by the Romans, they fell out of favour after the fall of Rome and only re-emerged as a popular fruit in the Middle Ages when people believed they had medicinal properties.

However, we might not have been as keen on the strawberries in the middle ages – they weren’t as sweet as the varieties we are familiar with. This is when they were cultivated from European varieties whereas we are more familiar with strawberries that are a hybrid of these European strawberries and the larger American strawberries.

These hybrid strawberries appeared in the 18th century in France. They were the result of some strawberry plants native to Chile and Peru being planted in France. These became cross pollinated by some North American strawberry plants, resulting in the larger, sweeter and juicier fruit we are more familiar with.

Do you think we found the king of strawberries? He’s got a fabulous crown ... shame it wasn’t gold ...

finding the largest strawberry in the field of strawberries

A Few Facts About Strawberries
Strawberries and Wimbledon seem to go hand in hand – and why not, when about three tonnes of berries will be eaten throughout the tournament.

A few theories on the name ...Does the name strawberry come from the Old English ‘streawberige’? A combination of ‘streaw’ meaning straw and ‘berige’ meaning berry.
Or
Do we call strawberries ‘strawberries’ because of the Anglo-Saxons? Where ‘streabergen’ was a combination of ‘strew’ meaning spread around and ‘bergen’ meaning berry or fruit.

Size matters with strawberries – medium sized fruits are fuller of flavour than the larger ones.

So our plan of finding the biggest strawberry in the field wasn’t a good idea ... the photo shows one of the biggest strawberries we could find.