8 Facts About Fruits You May Not Know About

You should consume a variety of fruits is what you always get to hear from several people like dietitians, doctors and your family. Of course, because it is necessary for your body to get the essential quantity of vitamins, minerals, fiber, sugar and even water. Fruits provide these nutrients to your body and form a very significant part of your diet. But do you know all the facts about fruits? Below are given some of the facts about fruits you may not know about.

1. Fruits have low calories

Fruits are filling but they don't have excessive calories or fats in them. They contain vitamins, fiber and sugar - all of which are required to keep us in the best of health.

2. Fruits reduce cardiovascular diseases

Many fruits have the capability to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, stroke as well as cancer. So those who have heart problems can gorge on fruits as they are known to be naturally reducing the risk of heart strokes and other related diseases.

3. Fruits don't have any cholesterol

Many people have high cholesterol in their systems due to the intake of unhealthy products. This makes them vulnerable to heart diseases and other illnesses. But fruits can easily avoid that as they are 100% cholesterol free.

4. Fruits aid in digestion

Fruits have natural fiber present in them. This fiber is very essential to ward off the cholesterol and fats from the body, thus making the body more fit. It also helps in digestion and reduces the chances of constipation as well.

5. Fruits build immunity level

Fruits are very high in antioxidants like vitamin C and anthocyanins. These when combined reduce the risks of oxidant stress, diseases and cancer. Moreover, they also help in building the immunity levels of the body and thus protect it from such diseases.

6. Fruits prevent aging

Many fruits like mulberries, blueberries, blackberries and other such blue fruits have properties to prevent the signs of aging too. Thus, the lines and the pigmentation on the face can be avoided by eating such fruits. They protect and rejuvenate the body cells, tissues as well as organs.

7. Fruits regulate blood pressure

Fruits such as avocados and apples are known to be helpful in balancing the blood pressure levels of the body.

8. Fruits help us live longer

Lastly, and the most important fruits benefit is that they can prolong life. Fruits like bitter gourd and coconut have medicinal properties. Bitter gourd has anticancer, antiviral, antimalarial and many such properties. Coconut water on the other hand can be used for blood transfusion as it is very similar to blood plasma. It has also helped save lives in World War 2 where the soldiers got emergency blood transfusion.

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Fun Facts About Fruits and Vegetables For Kids

Did you know that there are purple potatoes? They get this colour from the anthocyanins in them which are also found in berries such as blueberries, blackberries and blackcurrants, as well as purple or black carrots? These anthocyanins have powerful antioxidant properties which help protect us against cancer. The poor potato was not well received in Europe when it was first introduced in the 15th century and in one town in France and edict was passed forbidding people to grow potatoes because it was thought (wrongly) that they caused leprosy. Later the queen of France, Marie-Antoinette and the ladies of her court wore potato flowers in the hair.

Across the English Channel, the ladies of James I's (James VI's of Scotland) wore carrot tops in their hair as decorations. You can eat carrot tops as they are rich in vitamin K which carrots do not contain. Purple and red carrots are wonderful and taste sweeter than orange ones. There are yellow carrots too, but all carrots were purple until the 16th century when the Dutch bred the orange ones from mutant carrots in honour of their royal family the House of Orange.

Broccoli and cauliflower are actually flowers, although we eat them as vegetables. George W. Bush hates broccoli.

Peas were eaten dried by European peasants as the fresh ones were very expensive. They kept them for the winter months when they were dried, and even when eating fresh peas became popular in Britain in the 17th century, the ordinary people couldn't afford them. When Catherine de Medici left Italy to marry Henri II of France, she took piselli novelli with her. These were the tiny peas that the French instantly took too and called them petit pois (little peas) by which name they are still known today. Here's an anonymous rhyme about the difficulty of eating fresh green peas:

"I eat my peas with honey,

I've done it all my life.

It makes the peas taste funny,

But it keeps them on my knife."

Did you know that Norma Jean Baker, who was better known as the actress Marilyn Monroe was crowned Artichoke Queen in 1947 in Castroville California? The artichoke grows on a plant that looks like a thistle and is considered a gourmet vegetable. It comes from Italy originally and the head of the plant turns towards the sun just as sunflowers do.

In Southern India, eggplants cooked over a flame with onions, chilies, salt and rice are thought to prevent you from catching chicken pox. Eggplants or aubergines are related to the tomato and potato.

Fruit can be interesting too, for example, there is a snake fruit which is called this because its skin looks like a snake's, with scales (or it looks as though it has scales). The fruit itself is actually white, like a lychee.

A banana doesn't actually come from a tree, but a very tall herb which can grow to around twenty feet high. These plants don't have a very stable root system so you can actually knock over a banana tree.

An apple a day may very well keep the doctor away, especially if you eat the skin as this contains most of the nutrients. There are more than 7,000 varieties of apple grown around the world, and if you were to plant 100 apple trees from the seeds taken from the apples of one apple tree, none of them would be exactly the same.

The tomato is a fruit although we use it as a vegetable, and it was once thought to be a "wolf peach" described by ancient Roman writers. The wolf peach wasn't a peach at all but something that looked pretty and contained poison to kill the wolves which ate them.

The only fruit to have its seeds on the outside is the strawberry!

There are a lot more interesting things to discover about fruit and vegetables, they aren't as boring as you might have thought.

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