Cherries

Category: Food

Type

Voluntary

Introduction and description

Cherries are the fruit of trees in the genus Prunus. The Prunus family is very large and includes flowering cherry trees, wild Cherry trees as well as edible cherry trees. Some of the fruit of the flowering cherry trees is poisonous, so we are obviously aiming for the edible cherry.

Most edible cherries are derived from either Prunus avium, the sweet cherry or from Prunus cerasus, the sour cherry.

The native range of the sweet cherry extends through most of Europe, western Asia and parts of northern Africa, and the fruit has been consumed throughout its range since prehistoric times.

The English word cherry, French cerise and Spanish cereza all come from the classical Greek (κέρασος) through the Latin cerasum, the ancient Roman place name Cerasus, today a city in northern Turkey from which the cherry came.

According to Wikipedia “Irrigation, spraying, and labour costs, and their propensity to damage from rain and hail make cherries difficult to produce. A cherry tree will take three to four years to produce its first crop of fruit, and seven years to attain full maturity”. But when my father grew cherries in our garden the main problem was the birds who probably took most of the crop. Nevertheless they are now grown all over the world, simply because they taste delicious. The best cherries are tree ripened and hand picked – and expensive. Turkey still grows the most cherries commercially followed by the USA, Iran and Italy. 

There are now numerous varieties of edible cherry grown by commercial growers. Many are a rich purple red colour and deliciously sweet, but my memories are of the old fashioned tree in our garden which produced intensely flavoured cherries which were creamy yellow in colour with a faint to strong blush of pink. The flesh was pink too and they were sublime. 

Nutrient content

The chart below shows the Nutrients and is derived from - 09070, Cherries, sweet, raw National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference  Release 26   Software v.1.3.1 Nutrient values and weights are for edible portion.

Nutritionally cherries do not appear at first glance to be particularly rich in any vitamin or mineral except vitamin C. But cherries provide benefits in other areas. Cherry anthocyanins, a class of phytochemical red pigments, have shown in preliminary research to possibly affect pain and inflammation mechanisms in rats. Anthocyanins may have other effects which remain under basic research for their potential mechanisms. And cherries have uses in removing toxins from the body like most berry like fruit – the observations provide more details.

Method

Eat them raw.

In Winter or out of season, the next best option is to munch on dried cherries or have fruit packed cherry jam on wholegrain toast with lots of butter.  Wonderful for cold winter mornings, or round a roaring fire for tea or supper.   

Related observations

Healing observations

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• Dr Duke's list of Plants with Antiherpetic activity 018391
• Dr Duke's list of Plants with Antileishmanic Activity 018273
• Dr Duke's list of Plants with Antileukemic activity 019585
• Dr Duke's list of Plants with Antimelanomic activity 024204
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• Dr Duke's list of plants with hemopoietic effects - 2 All plants with activity 012485
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