Nature’s Candies – What to Do with a Handful of Berries?

Welcome back! As everyone returned to work or school after a summer holiday, autumn is pampering us with fantastic, sunny weather and natural, delicious goods. We step into the fall with bags full of mushrooms, vegetables bigger than they usually are, fruits that make us drool, and – of course – berries, which we just cannot get enough of! It is so fun to pick wild strawberries and put them on a bent, eat blueberries with natural milk, put raspberries on your fingers while pretending that you are Amelie from Montmartre. For many people – and members of our team – various berries symbolize late summer and early autumn when we can eat a handful of them for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Still, we would not have tasted all the flavours at that time! However, all the fun disappears when there are too many berries... We do not know what to do with them so that we may enjoy incredible tastes and vitamins all year round, and not just while the berries are still ripening?

Berries – a Source of Well-being

Before we start talking about berry preservation, it is necessary to mention at least a bit of why we need to eat berries all year round and not just when we can freshly pick them ourselves. Here we will not talk about buying berries in your local supermarket in the middle of winter. Although you can buy a variety of fresh products whenever you want them, it is healthier for our body to eat berries picked during their ripening season or the ones that are preserved to keep their nutrients. 

During their ripening season, the berries are the juiciest and have the most beneficial nutritional substances. Strawberries are a natural source of Vitamin C, while blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries have one of the highest percentages of antioxidants; they have similar amounts of antioxidants as pomegranate. Medical studies have also shown that blueberries help fight heart disease and lower blood cholesterol. Scientists have also found that certain berries can help fight cancer. For some experimental participants, eating a certain number of freeze-dried raspberries every day, their cancer numbers improved over time. 

In general, all berries are low in calories and high in fibre, so they are suitable for people with dietary restrictions or who just want to eat healthier and tastier. Berries can also make our skin glow! There are certain substances in berries that help fight enzymes that break down collagen. This protein is responsible for the elasticity of our skin. If we put all the pros in one place, we really would not find a reason to stay away from eating berries!

How to Preserve Berries’ Nutritional Value?

Suppose you ask your mom or grandma, as well as browse some internet blogs. In that case, you will easily find many tips and recipes that will allow you to preserve the nutritional value of berries all year round. One of the best ways is to freeze-dry berries, also known as lyophilization. Research has shown that freeze-dried berries have close to 90% of their fresh nutritional value, making them equivalent to eating freshly picked berries. 

Raspberries or sliced strawberries are especially popular in this way. Still, the process requires a particular freezing machine, which can be quite an investment. Lyophilization is usually done by certain companies. You can bring fresh berries and, after a few days, take back the little freeze-dried delicacies. Freeze-dried berries will be a great snack for those who want something sweet and healthy, as well as an excellent condiment for cakes or pastries. 

A slightly more straightforward and lovely way to preserve the nutritional value of berries is freezing, which does not require any special equipment apart from your freezer. Although the nutritional properties of this method have long been debated, it has been shown that frozen berries retain their nutritional value and are as healthy as fresh ones. 

Frozen berries are quite easy to use in various recipes, whether baking cakes, brewing tea, or making compotes. However, the most popular way is, without a doubt – the preparation of smoothies and cocktails! This way is also our favourite, but we don’t forget to add a little CBD Oil Drops – then we can enjoy both the taste of the berries and the benefits from CBD! The best part of this berry preservation method is that it is suitable for all berries – strawberries, raspberries, currants, blackberries, blueberries, cherries, wild strawberries or whatever you want!

Our team love natural fruit teas – it is an excellent source of vitamins, and the tea also warms us up on dark, long, autumn or winter evenings. However, in such weather, no one really does want to go to the store and buy fresh berries, so in such cases, it is handy to have some homemade berry jams in your pantry. When there are more berries than you can eat, you can always cook natural jams, which, when tightly closed, can be stored up until the next berry ripening season. 

In a large pot, put berries together with sugar, which allows the jams to harden and get that jelly texture, wait for the mix to come to a boil, and pour it into nice little jars. We should warn you that such recipes can contain a lot of sugar, so look for other recipes if you are the opposite of a sweet tooth. Whereas sugar enhances the sweetness of berries, the lack of it reduces the shelf life of the jams. It turns out that sugar is added to jams also because it absorbs moisture and prevents the spread of bacteria. Therefore, before eating the jam, which is less sweet, be sure to check the jar for the mould!

Berries are called the nature's candies for a reason – it is a source of natural sugar that can be eaten with no shame regardless of the time of the day. However, there is a way to turn berries into real-life sweets, but we warn you in advance that this recipe will require a lot of sugar. Be sure to skip this part of the blog if you have enough sweetness in your life already! Candied berries are made by bringing a sugar and water mix to a boil, which turns into a syrup. Then berries are dipped into it one by one and later sprinkled with some powdered sugar. It's true – candied berries are a sugar lover's dream. Still, different sources have different opinions on how long can candied berries be stored. Before eating them, be sure to inspect candied berries for mould, and always keep them in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

As we are finished with this blog, we can guarantee you will be in a rush to preserve all the berries by freezing, boiling, or drying them. On the other hand, we put the berries in our newest product – CBD Blueberry Gummies Full Spectrum! Natural gummies are perfect for the beginning of the fall and all year round! From now on, you can purchase these deliciously healthy gummies in even more convenient packaging.

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Too long, didn’t read? Berries are nature’s candies, but they all have one problem – short ripening season. We today introduced you to four different ways to preserve berries’ nutritional value up until the following season. Choose freeze-dried, frozen, candied berries, or start making natural homemade jams right away!

There's Nothing More Natural than Easter - and Tastier!

What is greener and warmer than Christmas but equally joyful and lovely? Of course – it’s Easter! For some people, Easter is just another weekend in the middle of the Spring season, while for others, it is a long-time celebration of rebirth and hope. With its roots hiding very far in the past, the modern-day Easter holiday is just as colourful as many of its symbols. Today we will flip through the pages of Easter’s history to reveal some interesting facts about its original celebration, unity with nature and Earth, and increasing trends. Let’s Spring festivities begin!

Do Traditional Approach Still Works?

One would not be mistaken when speaking about Easter from a religious point of view – the celebration takes place in more than ninety countries worldwide! As described by Britannica’s credible authors, Easter is a principal festival of the Christian church, which celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Despite two millennia passed since its earliest recorded observance, the tradition to celebrate on the 16th day of the first full moon of Spring lives on. Due to moon cycles, Easter’s exact date varies from March 22nd to April 25th, but agreements to make this date fixed never received much support. This year, we will celebrate Easter on April 4th. Some believers will only do so about two weeks later—this is another strange thing as some Christianity branches use different calendars (more on this in our Christmas blog).

In Unity with Nature

Even though a paragraph earlier we spoke about Easter deriving from faith and religion, some are more willing to accept celebrations roots reaching even further back in history; thus, continuing to debate the Easter’s linguistic origins. There is an approach recognizing Easter as a pagan festival with close ties to celebrating Spring equinox, which marks the arrival of astronomical spring in the Northern Hemisphere; surprisingly – people from Southern Hemisphere still celebrate Easter despite living in a middle of autumn! This year, Spring equinox fell on the same day – March 20th – as Earth Day. Since thousands of years ago, people mapped their life according to nature’s patterns; therefore, the day when the amount of darkness and daylight is identical made a pretty huge impact and allowed renewal.

Most Easter symbols are indeed related to nature. We sure all know the Easter bunny as a friendly fictional character who scatters around colourful painted eggs for little kids to find. As childish as it may seem, rabbits and hares get involved in the whole Easter thing due to being the symbol of fertility – Spring is the starting season of sowing crops and vegetables, so including rabbits into the mix does make sense. Similarly, the egg is one of the most well-known Easter symbols – its nature is commonly used to explain resurrection and return to life. You may now ask why these eggs were decorated as colouring seem to cover up their natural character? Well, the answer is quite simple as bold colours are easier to notice when the hunt begins and, of course, the metaphor of life is colourful.

Is it Still About Easter?

Easter and its symbols have been inseparable from one another for more than a few hundred years now. Little did people back then knew that one day their ideas and traditions would bring fortunes to sellers and businesses all around the world! Easter now as, any other national or international holiday, is commercialised and thematically put on every little piece of food or garment to sell it and make a profit from what once was a natural and pure celebration. From a marketing perspective, anything with Easter symbols sells very quickly, leaving only a handful of items to put on sale after the holiday ends. As we once talked about putting more effort into gifting and choosing more natural, hand-made presents, we often receive cute greeting cards complemented by edible bunnies or chocolate eggs – well, demand gives birth to supply.

While Easter chocolates are tasty, there are many ways to come back to our roots and highlight Easter’s original symbolic purpose – rebirth. Today we will share with you one fantastic recipe to bake in preparation for Easter with the hope of achieving a unique therapeutic effect and taking the stress off your shoulders – the recipe is so easy! Besides, we cannot maintain close physical contact with people we love this year again; we responsible picked out the recipe, which is perfect for baking treats, packing, and sending them for our family and friends to try. 

Biomedicanna’s team wishes you a lovely Easter! Stay safe!

Vegan and Gluten-Free Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients (12 servings):

• 60 g of coconut/olive/vegetable

• 200 ml of unsweetened plant-based milk

• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice

• 8 tablespoons of maple syrup (or any other sweetener)

• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

• a pinch of salt

• 150 g of ground almonds

• 150 g of gluten-free flour 

• 2 heaped teaspoons of baking powder

• ¼ teaspoon of baking soda

• 100 g of fresh/frozen blueberries

Cooking instructions:

• preheat the oven;

• place the coconut oil into a bowl and melt – skip the step if using other types of oil – add milk, lemon juice, maple syrup, vanilla, salt, and almonds;

• sift in the flour, baking powder and baking soda and mix – do not be afraid to add more milk if the mixture is too dry;

• add fresh or frozen blueberries and gently fold them in – if you use frozen ones, take them out of the freezer seconds before this step as it stops them from colouring the batter blue;

• divide the batter into equal parts of muffin baking tray and bake for 20 minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees Celsius – eat while hot, freeze if baked too much and enjoy!

If You have any question, contact us!