Ahhhh berries! Not only can they be enjoyed anytime of day from breakfast to dessert, but they also pack a high nutrient profile. Research is spread across the board when it comes to adding more berries into the diet. Research shows that berries deliver better cognitive health, aid in preventing certain types of cancer, help to lower blood pressure, manage better blood sugar levels if you have diabetes, reduce inflammation, and the list goes on.

You might be wondering at this point, ‘if there are all of these benefits, why am i not eating them more often’? Great question! Fruit in general sometimes gets a bad wrap about having too much sugar. As Registered Dietitians, we’re here to tell you that’s not the case. While fruit does have naturally occuring sugar it also delivers other things like fiber, antioxidants like anthocyanins, polyphenols like flavonoids, prebiotics, and a slew of vitamins and minerals.

Now that we’ve thrown around some pretty big words, here’s the gist of it. Berries are pretty powerful fruits to be incorporating in your diet daily with all the research we have on them and that continues to come out. Try to incorporate 1 serving of berries in the recommended 2-4 servings of fruit per day. For reference, a serving is ½ cup. The next time you’re shopping be sure to add blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries to your cart. 

Not sure how to get started utilizing these delicious fruits? Here are our top three ways to include them in the diet:

• Topping on: yogurt, granola, salad
• As a balanced snack – fruit+protein+fat (ex: cheese and berries)
• Dessert! Take an apple for example. You can:
  • Slice it, add a little blue cheese and a dot of honey
  • Dip it in chocolate hummus
  • Dice it and microwave it for 2 minutes and dollop on a little whip cream and a few dark chocolate chips