Strawberries, are you eating them right?

It is the season when winter strawberries are on the market again. Sweet, juicy and colorful strawberries have always been a favorite fruit. Whether eaten directly or made into various baked desserts, they are always a dazzling presence on the dining table.

Image source: soogif

However, despite the love for strawberries, there are still various scary rumors about strawberries, such as "Strawberries are full of hormones and children cannot eat them", "Out-of-season strawberries cannot be eaten as they will harm your health", "Strawberries are full of pesticides and are the dirtiest fruit"...

So, are these rumors true? Can we still eat strawberries happily?

NO.1

Do strawberries really affect your health?

The answer is: Yes!

As a high-water, low-sugar fruit, even if you eat half a pound of strawberries in one go, the calories you consume are less than 100kcal. It can be said to be quite friendly for people who want to maintain their figure or are trying to lose weight.

Moreover, the dietary fiber content of strawberries is also good. Every 100kcal of strawberries contains 6g of dietary fiber. Based on the recommended daily intake of 25g of dietary fiber, 100kcal of strawberries can provide 25% on their own.

In addition, strawberries contain various antioxidants, such as vitamin C, vitamin E and other antioxidant vitamins, as well as phenolic compounds such as anthocyanins and proanthocyanidins. Strawberries are full of these ingredients. If you want to become beautiful and handsome, you naturally cannot miss strawberries.

Image source: Pixabay

So, strawberries do affect our health, but this impact is positive and helps us achieve a healthier body from all angles!

As for the hormone rumors...Strawberries do have hormones during their growth process. But we need to have a correct understanding of the concept of hormones. Normal strawberries will secrete synthetic hormones during their growth and development to ensure that they can bloom and bear fruit normally and complete the entire growth stage. But if the climate is bad and the plant itself cannot synthesize enough hormones to ensure development, then some exogenous hormones need to be artificially applied to make up for the lack of endogenous hormones. So even if hormones are used in the process of strawberry cultivation, it is a normal thing.

Image source: Pixabay

The most important point is that hormones are highly specific and cannot be effective across species! (Please read this aloud three times)

The inability to be effective across species means that plant hormones cannot have any impact on animals, which means that no matter how many hormones are applied to strawberries, it has nothing to do with humans!

So there is no need to worry about eating strawberries leading to precocious puberty, unless you are reluctant to spend money to buy strawberries for your child and are making excuses!

Image source: Pixabay

So why are some strawberries so weird-shaped?

The main reason for the strange shapes of strawberries is uneven pollination. The pollinated parts grow faster, while the unpollinated parts grow slower, which naturally makes it easier for deformed fruits to grow. There is actually no problem with eating such deformities, so next time you see these deformed fruits, you can first admire the wonders of nature's creation, and then eat them in one gulp.

No.2

How to pick delicious strawberries?

Although deformed fruits do not affect their consumption, as a foodie, you will also find that whether the strawberry is big or small, deformed or not, hollow or not, it has no necessary relationship with its sweetness. When eating strawberries, the most important thing is definitely the sweet feeling. How can you choose the sweetest and most delicious strawberries?

Image source: soogif

There are two ways. The first one is: buy! Expensive!

If you want to eat sweeter strawberries, the most direct way is to trace the origin, that is, to select varieties. Varieties such as Hongyan strawberries and Zhangji strawberries are sweeter than other varieties of strawberries, which is a kind of blood suppression. So if you want to eat sweeter strawberries, just choose these varieties. But because of this, these varieties are often expensive in the market, much more expensive than ordinary strawberries, which is the "sweet price".

Image source: Pixabay

The second tip for choosing strawberries: look at the breasts, buttocks and body.

Don’t get the wrong idea, this buttocks is not that buttocks, I’m talking about the “plump buttocks” of strawberry.

Most of the time, we see commercially available strawberries with a circle of bluish-white flesh under the leaves:

Image source: Pixabay

Generally, the bluish-white color is directly related to the maturity of the fruit. The less white color, the more mature it is. The characteristics of delicious and pure sweet strawberries are generally: the whole body is red without bluish-white flesh, the small leaves (calyx) are raised high, and the skin is oily like patina. Therefore, a sweet strawberry should look like the following picture:

Therefore, if you want to pick delicious strawberries, those who have money can use the first trick: “money”; those who don’t have money can follow the second trick. This way you can definitely eat sweet and delicious strawberries.

No.3

90% of people wash strawberries incorrectly?

Before eating strawberries, washing is essential. Strawberries grow close to the ground during the entire growth process, so washing strawberries before eating them is still necessary. However, 90% of people do the wrong thing when washing strawberries.

Think back to how you wash strawberries yourself? Do you pick off the small leaves one by one, put them in a basin with clean water, sprinkle some salt or other cleaning agents, soak them for several minutes, rinse them off, and then eat them?

If you do this, congratulations, you are among the 90% of people who are wrong.

Image source: pexels

When washing fruits and vegetables, Chinese people like to add some detergent and then soak them to wash, but official agencies in many countries do not recommend the use of any detergent for washing. The correct way is to rinse them thoroughly with clean running water.

So when washing strawberries, do not remove the small leaves on the top first, just put them in a basin and rinse them several times with running water. If you are worried about stubborn dirt, you can rinse them several times with running water, soak them in clean water for 3 to 5 minutes, and then rinse them two or three times with running water. Remove the leaves on the top when you eat them, so as to avoid the loss of some water-soluble vitamins during the washing process and prevent sewage from contaminating the inside of the fruit.

As for the storage of strawberries that you cannot finish eating at one time, be sure to put them in the refrigerator in time. Do not get them wet before putting them in the refrigerator. Wash and eat them immediately. Do not save them. Buy only as much as you can eat.

Source: Chongqing Science and Technology Museum

Author: Sang Zili, member of the Chinese Nutrition Society.

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