These red small fruits come for a short time in a year but they are delicious. Cherries are eaten raw and tart (sour) , or ripe and sweet. But no matter how you eat them, cherries are going to provide their wonderful health benefits of cherries. Although their nutritional profile is not something very different from other foods or fruits, they still provide certain benefits which are unique to cherries and just a few more foods.
Health benefits of cherries :
- Weight Loss : It is believed that eating cherries or drinking their juice helps in managing weight better. This has not been proved but still many people who want to lose weight make cherries an indispensable part of their diet. When they are not in season, people drink packaged cherry juice. But, they can also help in weight gain for people who are underweight.
- Reducing Pain in the body : Cherries have a pain reducing effect. Eating a bowl full of cherries is a great way to start the day and get rid of pain and stiffness. Cherries can provide relief from chronic pain like lower back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain and other conditions that are known to specifically cause pain, like myofascial pain syndrome.
- Reduce Inflammation in the body : Cherries reduce the inflammatory response, thus preventing the harmful effects in conditions like arthritis, gout and other rheumatic issues of joints. It can prevent inflammatory reactions in the skin also.
- Cherries have a special class of compounds called anthocyanins. These nutrients are helpful in delaying aging, preventing nervous disorders, acting as an anti-bacterial and inhibiting some types of cancer.
- They help to keep the eyes healthy because of the Vitamin A content. To get more of this benefit, one should eat sour cherries as they have more beta-carotene.
- Cherries provide a lot of nutrients in moderate quantities. They provide most vitamins and minerals, being a good source of Vitamin C.
- Health benefits of cherries help in better functioning of the brain and thus may prevent age related conditions of the brain like Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
- Eating fresh cherries provides a good amount of dietary fiber which helps in forming bulk in the bowel and making bowel movements easier. It can help with constipation.
- Cherries can prevent diabetes to some extent.
The nutritional qualities of cherries also depend on the cultivar or the variety, like bing cherries or rainier cherries. During the season one can eat fresh cherries and then they are dried and used for the rest of the year.
Health benefits of black cherries :
The black variety of cherries have almost similar health benefits of cherries. However, they also help the kidney in flushing out uric acid. This helps to relieve gout. Even red cherries have this effect but not as pronounced.
