Introduction: Many people believe that dried fruits are high in sugar and lose a lot of vitamin C during the dehydration process, so they think dried fruits have little nutritional value. In fact, even though they lose vitamin C, dried fruits still retain many nutrients. Eating dried fruits in moderation is great for your health!
When it comes to the benefits of fruits, we can list them off the top of our heads, but when it comes to dried fruits, we are less familiar with them. Dried fruits have many advantages that people easily overlook. Let's take a look at them together.
1. You can eat all the fiber from the peel.
When eating fruits, people often spit out or peel the skin, otherwise they find it hard to swallow. In fact, the peel is the part of the fruit with the highest dietary fiber content. After dehydration, the dietary fiber is completely unaffected. For example, with raisins, none of the fiber is wasted.
Apple Dried
2. No risk of proteases and unpolymers tannins harming the digestive tract.
Fresh fruits often contain active proteases and tannins. Tannins have strong antioxidant effects, but for people with indigestion, they can be quite damaging to the mucous membrane of the digestive tract. Traditional health advice often advises people with indigestion not to eat fruits on an empty stomach, largely because of this fear. Once turned into dried fruit, the proteases are inactivated and the tannins are polymerized, greatly reducing the irritation to the digestive tract.
3. All mineral components are retained.
Although vitamin C is lost when making dried fruits, minerals such as potassium, magnesium, and iron are not lost. Instead, they become more concentrated due to water loss, so their content is higher than in fresh fruits. Therefore, all kinds of dried fruits are a good source of potassium. Raisins are rich in both potassium and iron, which is something even white or brown sugar cannot match.
4. Most antioxidant components are retained.
For red, blue, and purple-black fruits, anthocyanin antioxidants are particularly abundant and become concentrated after dehydration. Especially for dried fruits with thicker peels and darker colors, such as red raisins and blackcurrants, the health benefits are even better when eaten with the peel.
5. Easy to carry and store, they are a high-quality snack.
Although the sugar content of dried fruits is similar to the starch content of rice and they are considered high-calorie foods, you can put them in small bags and eat only a small handful at a time, making it easier to control the quantity. This prevents you from eating uncontrollably like you might with fresh fruits, and you don't have to worry about them going bad before you finish them.
Pineapple Dried
Tip: Before eating dried fruits, you must first learn to distinguish between "dried fruits," "preserved fruits," and "candied fruits".
Dates, raisins, longan, dried persimmons, apple dried, etc., are all dried fruits. These products are very easy to buy in online stores. Their common feature is that they are completely unsweetened, unsalted, and un-oiled, with no additives. They are in a completely natural state after the fruit has been dried and concentrated. Each has its own unique texture; for example, apple dried is very chewy and tough, while dried persimmons are springy and delicate. That chewy and stringy feeling is the result of a close collaboration between a large amount of sugar and pectin.
Preserved fruits and candied fruits are different. They have a lot of sugar added, or are sweetened and oiled, or sweetened and salted, etc. Moreover, many of these varieties contain various food additives to enhance flavor or aid preservation. However, because of these additions, their nutritional and health value is greatly diminished. This is true even for imported products; those blueberries with a lot of added sugar, or fruits and vegetables with a lot of added oil, have little health benefit.
Dried Fruit Pound Cake