Eating Dried Fruit May Be Linked With Better Health Markers from Natural Blaze
Don’t be afraid to toss a handful of raisins or dried apples in your Thanksgiving stuffing this year — a new Penn State study has found that dried fruit may be connected with better health.
The researchers found that people who ate dried fruit were generally healthier than those who did not, and on days when people ate dried fruit they consumed greater amounts of some key nutrients than on days when they skipped. However, they also found that people consumed more total calories on days when they ate dried fruit.
Valerie Sullivan, postdoctoral researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Penn State grad student at the time of the study, said the findings suggest that dried fruit can be part of a healthy diet — with some caveats.
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“Dried fruit can be a great choice for a nutritious snack, but consumers might want to be sure they’re choosing unsweetened versions without added sugar,” Sullivan said. “Portion sizes can also be tricky, because a serving of dried fruit is smaller than a serving of fresh since the water has been taken out. But the positive is that dried fruit can help people potentially consume more fruit because it’s portable, it’s shelf-stable, and can even be cheaper.”
Previous research has found that poor diet contributes to nearly half of deaths from cardiovascular disease in the U.S., with a lack of fruit being a major factor. According to the researchers, fruits provide an abundance of nutrients, including fiber, potassium and several heart-healthy bioactives.
However, despite these benefits, other studies have found that people may not eat enough fruit for a number of reasons — including limited availability, cost and the fact that it can spoil quickly, among others. In the current study, the researchers wanted to examine whether dried fruit could be a healthful alternative to fresh fruit, since it could be cheaper.
