Raspberry

Wonderfully delicious fruit with texture discribted as melt in the mounth. Raspberries are an aggregate fruit. Each raspberry is a fruit cluster with many bead-like fruits called druplets clustered around a core or receptacle. Each druplet contains one seed and a well developed berry generally has 100 to 120 seeds. When the berry is picked the receptacle remains on the bush and the berry resembles a hollow cone.

Raspberries rank near the top of all fruits for antioxidant strength, particularly due to their dense contents of ellagic acid (from ellagotannins), quercetin, gallic acid, anthocyanins, cyanidins, pelargonidins, catechins, kaempferol and salicylic acid. All these are polyphenolic antioxidants with promising health benefits.Raspberries possess almost 50% higher antioxidant activity than strawberries, three times that of kiwis, and ten times the antioxidant activity of tomatoes.

Raspberries contain significant amounts of polyphenol antioxidants such as anthocyanin pigments linked to potential health protection against several human diseases. As an antioxidant food containing ellagic acid, raspberries help prevent unwanted damage to cell membranes and other structures in the body by neutralizing free radicals. The aggregate fruit structure contributes to its nutritional value, as it increases the proportion of dietary fiber, placing it among plant foods with the highest fiber contents known, up to 20% fiber per total weight. Raspberries are a rich source of vitamin C, manganese and dietary fiber. They are also considerable source of vitamin B, folic acid, magnesium, copper and iron.