Cranberries!

Cranberries have been found to reduce the rate of growth of prostate and colon cancer. They can help reduce E. coli in the small intestine and urinary tract through proanthocyanidins.  E. coli is one of the top imbalanced bacteria in SIBO and in urinary tract infections. Cranberries are available almost everywhere in the world but you may have to stock up when they are in season or when they are carried in stores. My only issue with their availability is that they clearly cannot be grown everywhere in the holiday times that they are typically served (like December or April) but they can be frozen and saved and can also be prepared and then frozen or preserved in ferments. When cranberries are frozen as close as possible to their picking the nutrient loss is minimal.  Cranberries are native to North America but are now grown and sold almost everywhere on our planet.

The phytonutrients in cranberries are the active constituents that seem to reduce the rate of cancer growth. In studies of the specific compounds in cranberries the anthocyanins and proanthocyanins were both found to inhibit colon cancer by about 15% but the whole berry was found to inhibit those same cancer cells by much more, up to 75%. I prefer to think of this as reducing the need for cancer cells in the body but that’s another topic for another day…

Raw cranberries are a much better source with higher in concentrations of phytonutrients. In fact it would be almost impossible to eat enough dried cranberries or cranberry sauce or drink enough cranberry cocktail to equal one cup of fresh berries. This is because the berries are cooked, watered down, sweetened and otherwise denatured to make them palatable for our delicate sweet teeth. The drying processes take enough time for the polyphenols and phytonutrients to be quite degraded.  It would be ideal to find a way to eat the cranberries raw, store them after they were freshly frozen or preserve them by freeze drying. On the Plant Powered Probiotics site we have a Cranberry Mint Ice Cream that might help with this. I personally don’t really mind chomping down on some ripe raw ones but wouldn’t think less of you if they make you say “beh!”  You can even buy frozen cranberries and put them through a juicer after thawing and produce a brilliant, deep red and delicious juice.  Try mixing with watermelon, basil, lime and ginger for an epic juice.

Try cranberries in a smoothie along with your greens and maybe a little ginger if you are just getting used to unsweetened foods. This way you can sweeten with Stevia leaf or your choice of sweeteners and get the full benefits. It is possible that when cranberries are blended with other fresh foods the phytonutrients may be more absorbable too, especially in a vacuum blender.  But you don’t need fancy equipment, just use what you have and rejoice for the deep, dark red, nutritious berry. Another way I like to prepare these is with lemon (another cancer anti-proliferative fruit) and ginger in soda water or fresh coconut kefir.