Blueberries vs Cranberries – Which is Healthier?

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Our Verdict

When comparing blueberries to cranberries, we picked the blueberries.

Why?

It’s close!

In terms of macros, blueberries have slightly more protein and carbs, while cranberries have slightly more fiber. We say the extra fiber’s more important than the (even more minimally) extra protein, so this is the slightest of marginal wins for cranberries in this category.

In the category of vitamins, blueberries have much more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B9, K, and choline, while cranberries have slightly more of vitamins A, B5, B6, C, and E. That’s a 6:5 win for blueberries, and also, the margins of difference were much greater for blueberries’ vitamins, making this a clearer win for blueberries.

When it comes to minerals, blueberries have slightly more iron, manganese, phosphorus, and zinc, while cranberries have slightly more calcium. The margins of difference are small in both cases, but this is a 4:1 win for blueberries.

Both of these berries are famously full of antioxidants; blueberries have more antioxidant power overall, though cranberries have some specific benefits such as being better than antibiotics against UTIs—though there are some contraindications too; check out the link below for more on that!

All in all, meanwhile, we say that adding up the sections here makes for a win for blueberries, but by all means, enjoy either or both (unless one of the contraindications below applies to you).

Want to learn more?

You might like to read:

Health Benefits Of Cranberries (But: You’d Better Watch Out)

Take care!

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  • Lost for words? Research shows art therapy brings benefits for mental health

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    Creating art for healing purposes dates back tens of thousands of years, to the practices of First Nations people around the world. Art therapy uses creative processes, primarily visual art such as painting, drawing or sculpture, with a view to improving physical health and emotional wellbeing.

    When people face significant physical or mental ill-health, it can be challenging to put their experiences into words. Art therapists support people to explore and process overwhelming thoughts, feelings and experiences through a reflective art-making process. This is distinct from art classes, which often focus on technical aspects of the artwork, or the aesthetics of the final product.

    Art therapy can be used to support treatment for a wide range of physical and mental health conditions. It has been linked to benefits including improved self-awareness, social connection and emotional regulation, while lowering levels of distress, anxiety and even pain scores.

    In a study published this week in the Journal of Mental Health, we found art therapy was associated with positive outcomes for children and adolescents in a hospital-based mental health unit.

    An option for those who can’t find the words

    While a person’s engagement in talk therapies may sometimes be affected by the nature of their illness, verbal reflection is optional in art therapy.

    Where possible, after finishing an artwork, a person can explore the meaning of their work with the art therapist, translating unspoken symbolic material into verbal reflection.

    However, as the talking component is less central to the therapeutic process, art therapy is an accessible option for people who may not be able to find the words to describe their experiences.

    Art therapy has supported improved mental health outcomes for people who have experienced trauma, people with eating disorders, schizophrenia and dementia, as well as children with autism.

    Art therapy has also been linked to improved outcomes for people with a range of physical health conditions. These include lower levels of anxiety, depression and fatigue among people with cancer, enhanced psychological stability for patients with heart disease, and improved social connection among people who have experienced a traumatic brain injury.

    Art therapy has been associated with improved mood and anxiety levels for patients in hospital, and lower pain, tiredness and depression among palliative care patients.

    A person painting.
    Studies suggest art therapy could support people with a range of health conditions. mojo cp/Shutterstock

    Our research

    Mental ill-health, including among children and young people, presents a major challenge for our society. While most care takes place in the community, a small proportion of young people require care in hospital to ensure their safety.

    In this environment, practices that place even greater restriction, such as seclusion or physical restraint, may be used briefly as a last resort to ensure immediate physical safety. However, these “restrictive practices” are associated with negative effects such as post-traumatic stress for patients and health professionals.

    Worryingly, staff report a lack of alternatives to keep patients safe. However, the elimination of restrictive practices is a major aim of mental health services in Australia and internationally.

    Our research looked at more than six years of data from a child and adolescent mental health hospital ward in Australia. We sought to determine whether there was a reduction in restrictive practices during the periods when art therapy was offered on the unit, compared to times when it was absent.

    We found a clear association between the provision of art therapy and reduced frequency of seclusion, physical restraint and injection of sedatives on the unit.

    We don’t know the precise reason for this. However, art therapy may have lessened levels of severe distress among patients, thereby reducing the risk they would harm themselves or others, and the likelihood of staff using restrictive practices to prevent this.

    A black tree sculpture made of clay, with pink and purple dots in the centre.
    This artwork was described by the young person who made it as a dead tree with new growth, representing a sense of hope emerging as they started to move towards their recovery. Author provided

    That said, hospital admission involves multiple therapeutic interventions including talk-based therapies and medications. Confirming the effect of a therapeutic intervention requires controlled clinical trials where people are randomly assigned one treatment or another.

    Although ours was an observational study, randomised controlled trials support the benefits of art therapy in youth mental health services. For instance, a 2011 hospital-based study showed reduced symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder among adolescents randomised to trauma-focussed art therapy compared to a “control” arts and crafts group.

    A painting depicting a person crying.
    Artwork made by a young person during an art therapy session in an in-patient mental health unit. Author provided

    What do young people think?

    In previous research we found art therapy was considered by adolescents in hospital-based mental health care to be the most helpful group therapy intervention compared to other talk-based therapy groups and creative activities.

    In research not yet published, we’re speaking with young people to better understand their experiences of art therapy, and why it might reduce distress. One young person accessing art therapy in an acute mental health service shared:

    [Art therapy] is a way of sort of letting out your emotions in a way that doesn’t involve being judged […] It let me release a lot of stuff that was bottling up and stuff that I couldn’t explain through words.

    A promising area

    The burgeoning research showing the benefits of art therapy for both physical and especially mental health highlights the value of creative and innovative approaches to treatment in health care.

    There are opportunities to expand art therapy services in a range of health-care settings. Doing so would enable greater access to art therapy for people with a variety of physical and mental health conditions.

    Sarah Versitano, Academic, Master of Art Therapy Program, Western Sydney University and Iain Perkes, Senior Lecturer, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, UNSW Sydney

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Eat to Live – by Dr. Joel Fuhrman

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    It sure would be great if we could eat all that we wanted, and remain healthy without putting on weight.

    That’s the main intent of Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s book, with some caveats:

    • His diet plan gives unlimited amounts of some foods, while restricting others
    • With a focus on nutrient density, he puts beans and legumes into the “eat as much as you want” category, and grains (including whole grains) into the “restrict” category

    This latter is understandable for a weight-loss diet (as the book’s subtitle promises). The question then is: will it be sustainable?

    Current scientific consensus holds for “whole grains are good and an important part of diet”. It does seem fair that beans and legumes should be able to replace grains, for grains’ carbohydrates and fiber.

    However, now comes the double-edged aspect: beans and legumes contain more protein than grains. So, we’ll feel fuller sooner, and stay fuller for longer. This means we’ll probably lose weight, and keep losing weight. Or at least: losing fat. Muscle mass will stay or go depending on what you’re doing with your muscles.

    If you want to keep your body fat percentage at a certain level and not go below it, you may well need to reintroduce grains to your diet, which isn’t something that Dr. Fuhrman covers in this book.

    Bottom line: this is a good, science-based approach for healthily losing weight (specifically, fat) and keeping it off. It might be a little too good at this for some people though.

    Click here to check out Eat To Live and decide what point you want to stop losing weight at!

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  • Dealing With Waking Up In The Night

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    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small

    ❝I’m now in my sixties and find that I invariably wake up at least once during the night. Is this normal? Even if it is, I would still like, once in a while, to sleep right through like a teenager. How might this be achieved, without pills?❞

    Most people wake up briefly between sleep cycles, and forget doing so. But waking up for more than a brief moment is indeed best avoided. In men of your age, if you’re waking to pee (especially if it’s then not actually that easy to pee), it can be a sign of an enlarged prostate. Which is again a) normal b) not optimal.

    By “without pills” we’ll assume you mean “without sleeping pills”. There are options to treat an enlarged prostate, including well-established supplements. We did a main feature on this:

    Prostate Health: What You Should Know

    If the cause of waking up is something else, then again this is common for everyone as we get older, and again it’s not optimal. But since there are so many possible causes (and thus solutions), it’s more than we can cover in less than a main feature, so we’ll have to revisit this later.

    Meanwhile, take care!

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Related Posts

  • Red Cabbage vs Cauliflower – Which is Healthier?
  • Basil vs Oregano – Which is Healthier?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing basil to oregano, we picked the basil.

    Why?

    You may be thinking: these are just herbs; we don’t eat enough of these for the nutritional values to be relevant!

    And to this we say: there’s nothing stopping you :p Herbs are full of flavor and goodness and there is really no reason to deny yourself. On this note, check out the sabzi khordan (traditional Levantine herb platter), linked below. You’ll start thinking about herbs in new ways, and you can thank us later!

    Now, in terms of macros, nominally basil has more protein and oregano has more carbs and fiber, but the numbers are so close in each case that we’re going to call this category a tie.

    When it comes to vitamins, things get more interesting: basil has more of vitamins B2, B3, B6, B9, K, and choline, while oregano has more of vitamins A, B1, B5, C, and E. This means a 6:5 win for basil, but note how the two herbs together give an impressive vitamin coverage. In other words, they complement each other nutritionally, not just culinarily!

    In the category of minerals, basil has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium and zinc, while oregano has more selenium. Now, this is obviously a clear win for basil, but we’d like to highlight that both of these herbs are incredibly rich in minerals (i.e. oregano is a very good source of all those minerals we listed for basil, too!); it’s just that basil has even more of most of them.

    When looking at any nutrient-dense food (which most herbs are), it’s worth looking at polyphenols. In this case, both are very abundant in polyphenols, and/but their respective numbers are close enough to be within each other’s margin of variation (i.e. exact numbers will depend on the individual plant’s life history), so this category is a tie.

    Adding up the sections makes for an overall clear win for basil, but absolutely please do enjoy both unless you have a good reason not to—they complement each other so well, in nutrients as well as in flavor!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Enjoy!

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  • Healing Arthritis – by Dr. Susan Blum

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    We previously reviewed another book by this author, her Immune System Recovery Plan, and today it’s more specific: healing arthritis

    Of course, not all arthritis is rooted in immune dysfunction, but a) all of it is made worse by immune dysfunction and b) rheumatoid arthritis, which is an autoimmune disease, affects 1% of the population.

    This book tackles all kinds of arthritis, by focusing on addressing the underlying causes and treating those, and (whether it was the cause or not) reducing inflammation without medication, because that will always help.

    The “3 steps” mentioned in the subtitle are three stages of a plan to improve the gut microbiome in such a way that it not only stops worsening your arthritis, but starts making it better.

    The style here is on the hard end of pop-science, so if you want something more conversational/personable, then this won’t be so much for you, but if you just want the information and explanation, then this does it just fine, and it has frequent references to the science to back it up, with a reassuringly extensive bibliography.

    Bottom line: if you have arthritis and want a book that will help you to get either symptom-free or as close to that as is possible from your current condition (bearing in mind that arthritis is generally degenerative), then this is a great book for that.

    Click here to check out Healing Arthritis, and heal yours!

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  • The FDA Just Redefined “Healthy”—But How?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    In the ongoing war of labelling regulations (usually with advertisers on one side and regulators on the other), the FDA has updated what’s required in order to label a food as “healthy”.

    Here’s what they’re now* requiring:

    To bear the “healthy” claim, a food product needs to: 

    • Contain a certain amount of food (food group equivalent) from at least one of the food groups or subgroups (such as fruits, vegetables, fat-free and low-fat dairy etc.) recommended by the Dietary Guidelines.  
    • Adhere to specified limits for the following nutrients: saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars.

    Source: FDA | Press Releases | FDA Finalizes Updated “Healthy” Nutrient Content Claim

    *however, manufacturers have 3 years to conform, which if we’re being cynical about it, looks suspiciously like just short of a US presidential election cycle so that actual enforcement will be someone else’s problem.

    Will it help?

    Maybe! It’s not too dissimilar to the “traffic light system” already in use in Europe, although that currently emphasizes the absence/presence of “bad things” e.g. saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars.

    It has its faults, because for example…

    • not all saturated fat is bad, and a jar of coconut oil is now definitely going to get labelled as very unhealthy
    • low-sodium salt is, ironically, going to to get flagged as being very high in sodium and therefore unhealthy

    This latter is because on a g/100g basis, a product that’s ⅓ sodium chloride is going to have a lot of sodium, even if it’s approaching ⅔ less sodium than the product it’s (healthily!) replacing.

    However, on a large scale, these kinds of problems are surely going to be small next to (hopefully) manufacturers scrambling to find ways to cut down on the saturated fats, sodium, and added sugars.

    You may be wondering…

    What will they replace them with?

    Sometimes, companies trying to make something healthier will mess up, like when the health risks of smoking hit public consciousness, one cigarette company had the bright idea of putting asbestos in their filter tips, to market them as healthier. So, could something similar happen here?

    • Saturated fat: definitely could; because the health benefits/risks of different kinds of fats and their constituent fatty acids are a lot more nuanced than just “saturated” vs “mono-/polyunsaturated”, it is definitely possible that companies may replace healthier saturated-heavy fats with less healthy unsaturated fats, depending on what is cheaper.
    • Sodium: probably not; likely go-to replacements for sodium chloride will be potassium chloride (healthier than sodium chloride) and MSG (has an unearned bad reputation in the US, but is healthier than sodium chloride).
    • Added sugars: probably—things get very complicated very quickly when it comes to artificial sweeteners, and also the crux will definitely lie in what gets defined as an “added sugar”; watch out for a rise in the use of things that slide by the definition of added sugar while still being chemically (and, which is important, metabolically) the same thing.

    Well that doesn’t sound great

    It doesn’t, but on the flipside, the positive inclusions will probably be mostly good.

    For example, the only way to get a “healthy” labelling in including fiber is to include more fiber, same with vitamins and minerals.

    The low-fat dairy thing could possibly get abused (much like with the general “low-fat” trend of the 80s).

    The “portion of fruit” thing will need to be carefully defined to avoid running straight back into the “this is just added sugar by another name” problem; mostly that it’ll need to still include the same amount of fiber as was in the whole fruit, gram for gram.

    See also: What Matters Most For Your Heart? ← it’s about fiber, not salt or saturated fats!

    Take care!

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