What are Blackberries
Blackberries are polidrupa fruits formed by an aggregation of small drupes placed on the same convex receptacle (they belong to the category of aggregated or compound fruits ).
While blackberries are produced from a wild, thorny, semi-deciduous shrub, several meters long and provided with arched spines, mulberry blackberries are the fruit of a deciduous tree with a low-value wood that was once cultivated for harvesting. of the leaves; these constituted a primary forage in the feeding of silkworms.
Both plants that produce blackberries, despite the obvious botanical differences, are characterized by a white or yellowish or pinkish flowering, which occurs in the month of May, while the fruit is harvested between the end of July and August.
Curiosities : being blackberries highly delicious fruits, once (when sweetening was NOT common use) they were considered as a dessert; obviously, by making themselves available for 30-40 days a year, blackberries were a fruit a great deal of which everyone was waiting for. So it was that, to indicate a long wait when it is difficult to get something, the saying was born: it is more difficult / far from January from the blackberries!
Using blackberries
| Nutritional composition of blackberries (food composition tables - INRAN) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Nutritional values (per 100 g of edible portion)
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Blackberries are therefore useful fruits for fresh consumption, but they are particularly suitable for the preparation of jams, the dough for desserts and the packaging of flavored ice cream or yoghurt. From the blackberry flower, the bees produce an excellent honey while the buds, after cooking, like other wild species, are among the edible herbs.
Nutritional aspects
Blackberries are fruits that, more than others, vary chemically with the progress of maturation. The most ripe firstlings, with a sour taste, possess a moderate energy value while those cultured in an advanced dry season, with a very sweet taste, contain less water and much fructose. However, making an average of the blackberries on the market (much more watery than the wild ones), we get a sufficiently contained energy density, which totally reflects the profile of the "summer fruit".
Blackberries are NOT recommended foods for those suffering from diverticulosis; they contain numerous small seeds which, if caught in a diverticulum, could ignite or infect it, causing the onset of diverticulitis. However, although they become unsuitable in such circumstances, blackberries are advisable for those suffering from constipation thanks to their good content in dietary fiber.
Blackberries also have a very useful nutritional characteristic to the body, namely the high concentration of polyphenolic antioxidants: tannins (especially in seeds) and anthocyanins (also in the pulp). These compounds, associated with the good presence of vit. Equivalent C and retinol (pro-vit. A, β-carotene) make blackberries potentially useful for the prevention of oxidative stress, and therefore of carcinogenesis.
NB . While containing only traces of lipids in the pulp, blackberries make use of a good content of essential fatty acids such as omega3 (α-linolenic acid) inside the seeds; an appropriate chewing of the fruit frees up its nutritive principles, thus making full use of its nutritional function.
