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The all-round summer superfood

Feature

If you're hoping to lose weight, save your skin from the damaging effects of the sun, alleviate the symptoms of hayfever or attract a partner, eating raspberries is the answer. According to Patrick Holford, founder of the Institute for Optimum Nutrition, they are the ideal all-round good-for-you summer food.

They are exceptionally low in calories (122 per punnet) and have a very low glycaemic load, which enables blood sugar to remain constant, thus providing sustained energy levels.

Sun worshippers should eat raspberries before facing the rays as they have the highest antioxidant content of any fruit. Tanning the skin exposes us to harmful ultraviolet rays and free radicals that age the skin, cause wrinkles and increase the risk of many diseases including cancer. The only reversal to this is exposure to antioxidants.

Raspberries are also nature's cure for hayfever, due to their high quercitin content. Quercitin, a bioflavanoid, inhibits the release of histamine, which helps mitigate conditions brought on by hayfever. Eating raspberries can further improve the appearance of the skin as quercitin improves the health of capillaries and connective tissues which can help alleviate bruising, oedema, varicose veins and fragile capillaries.

"If you want to look good, stay in shape and have an action packed summer, simply snack on a handful of raspberries a day, whether eaten on their own, with yogurt, as a natural sweetener on cereal or even in a cocktail," says Holford.

New evidence also indicates that eating raspberries makes you attractive to the opposite sex.

Bharti Vyas, a UK specialist in ayurvedic medicine, cites evidence that the consumption of raspberries provokes a facial flush similar to that produced by sexual arousal, by rapidly increasing the speed of blood circulation. This in turn floods the facial capillaries. The brain then makes a subconscious link between flushed skin and sexual arousal

"Raspberries are a hot energy food and the effects of consuming them are dramatic," says Vyas.

"After 20 minutes of eating only a handful, a rosy flush becomes visible. This lasts up to five hours. If you eat more raspberries the effect lasts longer.

"All berries are a hot energy food, but raspberries are the hottest because they have substantially more seeds."

Raspberry seeds are also known to contain very high levels of testosterone-producing zinc, the mineral linked with sexual arousal, as well as high levels of vitamins C and E, which are thought to boost sex drive.

"Zinc is undoubtedly the most important mineral for sexual arousal and fertility," Tracey Cox, one of the UK's leading sex and relationship experts, explains. In addition to their physical effect, she suggests staining your lips with a little of the raspberry's juice.

"It's very simple, the more raspberries you eat, the sexier you look and feel," she says.

Top 10 raspberry facts

1. One punnet of raspberries is 122 calories and contains 0g of fat.
2. Raspberries have among the lowest glycaemic load (GL) of any fruit.
3. Raspberries can help alleviate the symptoms of hayfever, eczema and asthma.
4. Eating raspberries can help alleviate bruising and varicose veins.
6. Raspberries help promote firm, healthy skin due to their high vitamin C content.
7. Sun worshippers should eat raspberries before facing the rays as they have the highest antioxidant content of any fruit.
8. Eating raspberries is beneficial to a healthy sex life due to their high zinc content.
9. Raspberries are top anti-cancer foods as they are exceptionally high in four known anti-cancer nutrients: anthocyanins, ellagic acid, isothiocyanates and quercitin.
10. Eating raspberries helps prevents pregnancy problems and miscarriages due to their high content of folate.

British raspberries are available from all UK supermarkets from July until mid-September. Peak season is July and August.

Picture caption: Berry useful - raspberries can help prevent skin damage, may alleviate allergies and are an aphrodisiac to boot.



MyVillage 19th June




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