Growing many fruits myself including elderberry, aronia, concord grapes, black berries , black raspberries and many others these super fruits are compared to. So some ask why then did I decide to have acres of aronia instead of acres of elderberry. There are many reasons! Aronia produce more fruit than elderberry. The two berries taste similar both are bad. Western sand cherry aka Hansen’s bush cherry is equally bad. Here are charts you need to see that explain the orac content which is the ability each berry has to fight cancer causing free radicals in the human body.
Eldon Everhart put together the chart at the bottom based on USDA data. Eldon was my consultant I hired to locate the best berry plants.
For a nominal fee he put me in touch with Harlan who owned HH wild plum nursery and bluebird nursery and Ken who owned Superberries. Eldon worked for a University at the time where he ran an Agriculture program he retired from to focus on aronia. He does consulting and discusses things related to the promotion of aronia like soil tests, location research, variety research among other things. Eldon later established an organization for Aronia. I’m not trying to promote their agendas for aronia or to get other growers interested in Aronia. Ken sold superberry is my understanding, Harlan died in an accident, and I have not spoke with Eldon in years but I bring this up because I discussed elderberry with them. They were well aware of the health benefits of elderberry and very impressed by them. They chose to focus on aronia for many reasons related to production, Mechanical harvest, and nutrient content. My beliefs are slightly different and I believe it all looks good on paper but selling aronia in the USA is challenging due to flavor. It’s my opinion we might be as well off to grow blackberry, concord grapes, or other better tasting antioxidant fruits. Consider I grow elderberry and aronia and other fruits mentioned. Blueberries are very healthy and very delicious but I cannot easily grow them here. Black currants are good tasting to me but repulse certain people. Wonder where honeyberry rank on the charts! Have done the field research as well and we know it takes years Aronia Harvest . All that said the individuals such as Eldon I brought up are very dedicated to their cause because of the health benefits from aronia. Healthy food is totally missing from the average Americans diet. Elderberry is the second highest in orac content as noted by the chart so all the good things people say are true. The original chart had acai berry on it and because the powder was used it out ranked both aronia and elderberry. Later acai was removed from the chart because the analysis was done on powder and not fruit. Still use acai myself and personally find it amazing for health benefits but rather expensive. Bilberry has amazing health benefits as well but like huckleberry and sloes did not make it on the charts.
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