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Acerola

A berry filled with health

Healing power

Can help:

Strengthen the immune system;

Speed wound healing;

Prevent heart disease;

Protect against cancer

What’s an Acerola?

It’s a small, red, cherry like fruit which is native to the West Indies and now grown also in Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands. The fruit is considered as the richest source of vitamin C in the world, this means that it can benefit the body in a variety of ways, from fortifying the immune system to helping prevent age related conditions like heart disease and cancer.

Benefits of vitamin C

Vitamin C, which is found in abundance in citrus fruits, has been shown to help relieve cold symptoms, help the body make collages, a tough, fibrous protein that helps build connective tissue, skin, bones, and teeth and it also plays a role in wound healing. Vitamin C also helps the body from free radicals, cell damaging oxygen molecules thought to contribute to the development of cancer, heart disease, and many other conditions. An Acerola contains 80 milligrams of vitamin C, 133 percent of the Daily Value, an entire orange has only 70 milligrams. Even guava, one of the richest natural sources of vitamin C can’t compete because one single Acerola berry contains 10 times more vitamin C than one whole guava.

In the kitchen

You can use fresh Acerola just as you would with other berries, in jellies, in pie, or other fruit desserts. If you however buy the tart variety, be prepared to use a lot of sugar to keep your mouth from puckering.

You can crush dried Acerola with a rolling pin, then add it in small amounts to pies, preserves or fruit butters. It will last for months when stored in a tightly covered glass jar, as long as you periodically check it and discard the moldy.

Tips

- Enjoy the sweet taste by opting for the sweeter kin over the tart varieties Acerola, although they contain more vitamin C, it hardly matters.

- Buy it processed; specialty markets in Puerto Rico carry Acerola jams, jellies, and juices. Although they contain so less vitamin compared to fresh berries, it has been proved that the still carry around 60 to 80 percent of the vitamin C.

- Treat the berries gently; dried and crushed Acerola berries can be used to make but unfortunately boiling or steeping the berries in hot water reduces vitamin C by half so to get it all, you might need to add a few extra berries.   


article written by:Cristo Rutazihana