Five Reasons Why Wild Blueberries Buck the Food Blandification Trend

May 8, 2015

Augusta, Maine – May 8, 2015 – Food writer Mark Schatzker’s new book, “The Dorito Effect: The Surprising Truth about Flavor and Food,” is generating a lot of discussion about food taste. According to Schatzker, since the late 1940s, Americans have been slowly leeching flavor out of the food we grow, and the result is food that is not only bigger but blander.

During this evolution of food, there is one tiny fruit superstar that is bucking the blandification trend. While many of the foods grown today are getting bigger and blander, Wild Blueberries have stayed small and bursting with flavor.

Wild Blueberry expert, David Yarborough, Professor of Horticulture at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, provides five reasons why Wild Blueberries have maintained their complex and intense flavor:

  1. Diversity is the key to nature, and Wild Blueberries are diversity SUPERSTARS! Maine’s Wild Blueberry fields host a mix of literally thousands of varieties of dark and light berries. This diversity is what gives Wild Blueberries that complex and delicious flavor.
  2. Any given Wild Blueberry field can support literally hundreds of thousands of different plants. Compare this to regular cultivated blueberries, which might host a half-dozen varieties in one growing area.
  3. Wild Blueberries have a higher skin-to-pulp ratio than their larger cultivated counterparts. More skin and less water equal more antioxidant-rich pigment and more INTENSE blueberry flavor.
  4. Wild Blueberries are indigenous plants – they occur naturally in barrens and fields of Maine, Eastern Canada and Quebec, where they have grown for over 10,000 years.
  5. Wild Blueberry plants are not planted by man. They naturally establish by themselves; they survive in the glacial soils; and they thrive in the cold, harsh northern climate.

Yarborough says, “If you still need convincing, try a handful of Wild Blueberries – you can find them in the frozen fruit section of your grocery store – and enjoy the surprising kind of tartness, sweetness, and complexity that make this wild berry a natural taste sensation.”

About the Wild Blueberry Association of North America
The Wild Blueberry Association of North America (WBANA) is a trade association of growers and processors of Wild Blueberries from Maine and Canada, dedicated to bringing the Wild Blueberry health story and unique Wild Advantages to consumers and the trade worldwide.

WBANA is dedicated to furthering research that explores the health potential of Wild Blueberries. Every year since 1997, WBANA has hosted the Health Research Summit in Bar Harbor, a worldwide gathering of scientists and researchers whose work is leading the way in learning more and more about the health benefits of Wild Blueberries.

 

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