Cherries vs Blueberries – Which is Healthier?

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Our Verdict

When comparing cherries to blueberries, we picked the blueberries.

Why?

It was close! And blueberries only won by virtue of taking an average value for cherries; we could have (if you’ll pardon the phrase) cherry-picked tart cherries for extra benefits that’d put them ahead of blueberries. That’s how close it is.

In terms of macros, they are almost identical, so nothing to set them apart there.

In the category of vitamins, they are mostly comparable except that blueberries have a lot more vitamin K, and cherries have a lot more vitamin A. Since vitamin K is the vitamin that’s scarcer in general, we’ll call blueberries’ vitamin K content a win.

Blueberries do also have about 6x more vitamin E, with a cup of blueberries containing about 10% of the daily requirement (and cherries containing almost none). Another small win for blueberries.

When it comes to minerals, they are mostly comparable; the largest point of difference is that blueberries contain more manganese while cherries contain more copper; nothing to decide between them here.

We’re down to counting amino acids and antioxidants now, so blueberries have a lot more cystine and tyrosine. They also have slightly more of amino acids that they both only have trace amounts of. And as for antioxidants? Blueberries contain notably more quercetin.

So, blueberries win the day—but if we had specified tart cherries rather than taking an average, they could have come out on top. Enjoy both!

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  • We’re the ‘allergy capital of the world’. But we don’t know why food allergies are so common in Australian children

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    Australia has often been called the “allergy capital of the world”.

    An estimated one in ten Australian children develop a food allergy in their first 12 months of life. Research has previously suggested food allergies are more common in infants in Australia than infants living in Europe, the United States or Asia.

    So why are food allergies so common in Australia? We don’t know exactly – but local researchers are making progress in understanding childhood allergies all the time.

    Miljan Zivkovic/Shutterstock

    What causes food allergies?

    There are many different types of reactions to foods. When we refer to food allergies in this article, we’re talking about something called IgE-mediated food allergy. This type of allergy is caused by an immune response to a particular food.

    Reactions can occur within minutes of eating the food and may include swelling of the face, lips or eyes, “hives” or welts on the skin, and vomiting. Signs of a severe allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) include difficulty breathing, swelling of the tongue, swelling in the throat, wheeze or persistent cough, difficulty talking or a hoarse voice, and persistent dizziness or collapse.

    Recent results from Australia’s large, long-running food allergy study, HealthNuts, show one in ten one-year-olds have a food allergy, while around six in 100 children have a food allergy at age ten.

    https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/skin-rashes-babies-concept-1228925236
    A food allergy can present with skin reactions. comzeal images/Shutterstock

    In Australia, the most common allergy-causing foods include eggs, peanuts, cow’s milk, shellfish (for example, prawn and lobster), fish, tree nuts (for example, walnuts and cashews), soybeans and wheat.

    Allergies to foods like eggs, peanuts and cow’s milk often present for the first time in infancy, while allergies to fish and shellfish may be more common later in life. While most children will outgrow their allergies to eggs and milk, allergy to peanuts is more likely to be lifelong.

    Findings from HealthNuts showed around three in ten children grew out of their peanut allergy by age six, compared to nine in ten children with an allergy to egg.

    Are food allergies becoming more common?

    Food allergies seem to have become more common in many countries around the world over recent decades. The exact timing of this increase is not clear, because in most countries food allergies were not well measured 40 or 50 years ago.

    We don’t know exactly why food allergies are so common in Australia, or why we’re seeing a rise around the world, despite extensive research.

    But possible reasons for rising allergies around the world include changes in the diets of mothers and infants and increasing sanitisation, leading to fewer infections as well as less exposure to “good” bacteria. In Australia, factors such as increasing vitamin D deficiency among infants and high levels of migration to the country could play a role.

    In several Australian studies, children born in Australia to parents who were born in Asia have higher rates of food allergies compared to non-Asian children. On the other hand, children who were born in Asia and later migrated to Australia appear to have a lower risk of nut allergies.

    Meanwhile, studies have shown that having pet dogs and siblings as a young child may reduce the risk of food allergies. This might be because having pet dogs and siblings increases contact with a range of bacteria and other organisms.

    This evidence suggests that both genetics and environment play a role in the development of food allergies.

    We also know that infants with eczema are more likely to develop a food allergy, and trials are underway to see whether this link can be broken.

    Can I do anything to prevent food allergies in my kids?

    One of the questions we are asked most often by parents is “can we do anything to prevent food allergies?”.

    We now know introducing peanuts and eggs from around six months of age makes it less likely that an infant will develop an allergy to these foods. The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy introduced guidelines recommending giving common allergy-causing foods including peanut and egg in the first year of life in 2016.

    Our research has shown this advice had excellent uptake and may have slowed the rise in food allergies in Australia. There was no increase in peanut allergies between 2007–11 to 2018–19.

    Introducing other common allergy-causing foods in the first year of life may also be helpful, although the evidence for this is not as strong compared with peanuts and eggs.

    A boy's hand holding some peanuts.
    Giving kids peanuts early can reduce the risk of a peanut allergy. Madame-Moustache/Shutterstock

    What next?

    Unfortunately, some infants will develop food allergies even when the relevant foods are introduced in the first year of life. Managing food allergies can be a significant burden for children and families.

    Several Australian trials are currently underway testing new strategies to prevent food allergies. A large trial, soon to be completed, is testing whether vitamin D supplements in infants reduce the risk of food allergies.

    Another trial is testing whether the amount of eggs and peanuts a mother eats during pregnancy and breastfeeding has an influence on whether or not her baby will develop food allergies.

    For most people with food allergies, avoidance of their known allergens remains the standard of care. Oral immunotherapy, which involves gradually increasing amounts of food allergen given under medical supervision, is beginning to be offered in some facilities around Australia. However, current oral immunotherapy methods have potential side effects (including allergic reactions), can involve high time commitment and cost, and don’t cure food allergies.

    There is hope on the horizon for new food allergy treatments. Multiple clinical trials are underway around Australia aiming to develop safer and more effective treatments for people with food allergies.

    Jennifer Koplin, Group Leader, Childhood Allergy & Epidemiology, The University of Queensland and Desalegn Markos Shifti, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Child Health Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland

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

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  • Ridged Nails: What Are They Telling You?

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    Dr. Yaseen Arsalan, a Doctor of Pharmacy, has advice on the “nutraceutical” side of things:

    Onychorrhexis

    Sounds like the name of a dinosaur, but it’s actually the condition that creates the vertical ridges that sometimes appear on nails. It’s especially likely in the case of thinner nails, and/or certain nutritional deficiencies. Overuse of certain chemicals (including nail polish remover, hair products that get on your hands a lot, and cleaning fluids) can also cause it. It can also be worsened by various conditions, including eczema, psoriasis, hypothyroidism, anemia, and amyloidosis, but it won’t usually be outright caused by those alone.

    There are two main kinds of ridges on nails:

    • Vertical ridges: associated with hypothyroidism, anemia, and aging. Often an indicator of low iron.
    • Horizontal ridges (Beau’s lines): caused by interrupted nail growth, brute force trauma, chemotherapy, acrylic nails, and gel nail polishes. Can also be an indicator of low zinc.

    There are an assortment of medical treatments available, which Dr. Arsalan discusses in the video, but for home remedy treatment, he recommends:

    • Nail-strengthening creams (look for coconut oil, shea butter, beeswax, vitamin E)
    • Hydration (this is about overall hydration e.g. water intake)
    • Careful nail trimming (fingernails with a curved shape and toenails straight across)
    • Nail ridge filler (he recommends the brand Barrielle, for not containing formaldehyde or formalin)
    • Moisturization (with cuticle oil or hand creams, because that hydration we talked about earlier is important, and we want it to stay inside the nail)

    For more on those things, plus the medical treatments plus other “how to avoid this” measures, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

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    Take care!

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  • The Medicinal Chef – by Dale Pinnock

    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.

    The philosophy here is very much like our own—to borrow from Hippocrates: “let food be thy medicine”. Obviously please do also let medicine be thy medicine if you need it, but the point is that food is a very good starting place for combatting a lot of disease.

    To this end, instead of labelling the recipes with such things as “V”, “Ve”, “GF” and suchlike, it assumes we can tell those things from the ingredients lists, and instead labels things per what they are especially good for:

    • S: skin
    • J: joints & bones
    • R: respiratory system
    • I: immune system
    • M: metabolic health
    • N: nervous system and mental health
    • H: heart and circulation
    • D: digestive system
    • U: reproductive & urinary systems

    As for the recipes themselves… They’re a lot like the recipes we share here at 10almonds in their healthiness, skill level, and balance of easy-to-find ingredients with the occasional “order it online” items that punch above their weight. In fact, we’ll probably modify some of the recipes for sharing here.

    Bottom line: if you’re looking for genuinely healthy recipes that are neither too basic nor too arcane, this book has about 80 of them.

    Click here to check out The Medicinal Chef: Healthy Every Day, and be healthy every day!

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  • PCOS Repair Protocol – by Tamika Woods

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    The style is on the low-end of pop-science, notwithstanding the clinically-informed content. For those who like a very chatty informal approach, you’ll find this one perfect. For those who don’t, well, you won’t find this one perfect, but you will most likely find it informative all the same.

    Bottom line: if you or someone you care about (do you know 5 women?) has PCOS, the information in here could make a difference.

    Click here to check out PCOS Repair Protocol, and suffer less!

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  • Healthy Kids, Happy Kids – by Dr. Elisa Song

    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.

    If you have young children or perhaps grandchildren, you probably care deeply about those children and their wellbeing, but there can often be a lot more guesswork than would be ideal, when it comes to ensuring they be and remain healthy.

    Nevertheless, a lot of common treatments for children are based (whether parents know it or not—and often they dont) on what is most convenient for the parent, not necessarily what is best for the child. Dr. Song looks to correct that.

    Rather than dosing kids with acetaminophen or even antibiotics, assuming eczema can be best fixed with a topical cream (treating the symptom rather than the cause, much?), and that some things like asthma “just are”, and “that’s unfortunate”, Dr. Song takes us on a tour of pediatric health, centered around the gut.

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  • Potatoes & Anxiety

    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.

    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

    ❝My other half considers potatoes a wonder food, except when fried. I don’t. I find, when I am eating potatoes I put on weight; and, when I’m not eating them, I lose it. Also, although I can’t swear to it, potatoes also make me feel a little anxious (someone once told me it could have something to do with where they are on the “glycemic index”). What does the science say?❞

    The glycemic index of potatoes depends on the kind of potato (obviously) and also, less obviously, how it’s prepared. For a given white potato, boiling (which removes a lot of starch) might produce a GI of around 60, while instant mash (basically: potato starch) can be more like 80. For reference, pure glucose is 100. And you probably wouldn’t take that in the same quantity you’d take potato, and expect to feel good!

    So: as for anxiety, it could be, since spiked blood sugars can cause mood swings, including anxiety.

    Outside of the matter of blood sugars, the only reference we could find for potatoes causing anxiety was fried potatoes specifically:

    ❝frequent fried food consumption, especially fried potato consumption, is strongly associated with 12% and 7% higher risk of anxiety and depression, respectively❞

    Source: High fried food consumption impacts anxiety and depression due to lipid metabolism disturbance and neuroinflammation

    …which heavily puts the blame not on the potatoes themselves, but on acrylamide (the orange/brown stuff that is made by the Maillard reaction of cooking starches in the absence of water, e.g. by frying, roasting, etc).

    Here’s a very good overview of that, by the way:

    A Review on Acrylamide in Food: Occurrence, Toxicity, and Mitigation Strategies

    Back on the core topic of potatoes and GI and blood sugar spikes and anxiety, you might benefit from a few tweaks that will allow you to enjoy potatoes without spiking blood sugars:

    10 Ways To Balance Blood Sugars

    Enjoy!

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