2023-06-23 16:30:00
CHRONIC. Due to their high pesticide content, some strawberry varieties have a bad reputation. But is that a good reason to stop eating it?
By Boris Hansel, with Guillaume Paret (Video)
Published on 06/23/2023 at 6:30 p.m.
Every Friday, find, on Le Point.fr, the nutrition chronicle of Professor Boris Hansel, endocrinologist and nutritionist at the Bichat hospital in Paris. He is also the host of the health channel PuMS on YouTube.
There are very good reasons to eat strawberries, even every day but with some precautions. The strawberry is a fruit or for purists a false fruit because the real fruit are the small brown grains that are on its surface, what are called achenes. But it’s all the strawberries I want to talk to you regarding.
Some will tell you that it is an ideal fruit to go on a diet. Admittedly, with its 40 kilocalories per 100 grams, it is little compared to most fruits. But it has never been shown that eating strawberries, rather than bananas, is a miracle way to lose weight. I don’t recommend obsessing over calories when choosing fruit.
READ ALSOCrudivorism: five things to know regarding this diet
Fiber and vitamin C
The interest of the strawberry is elsewhere. Its composition is naturally very interesting: first of all, it contains sugar but in small quantities, just enough to give flavor and a lot of fiber, that is to say carbohydrates that we does not digest but which are highly recommended for our health. This composition explains why even very sweet strawberries do not raise blood glucose very much, including in people with diabetes.
Strawberries are also an excellent source of vitamin C. In summer, they largely replace oranges, clementines and kiwis in terms of this vitamin.
READ ALSOSugars or synthetic sweeteners? How to choose wellAnd among the other riches of the strawberry, there is its contribution in phenolic compounds. We often talk regarding these constituents of fruits that are supposed to have anti-cancer and inflammation-fighting effects. Moreover, the red color of strawberries is precisely due to some of these molecules: anthocyanins!
However, there are two precautions to take with strawberries:
1) Watch out for allergies. Unfortunately, they are common. If following eating strawberries, you feel swelling in your mouth, or simply if it stings or scratches you in your mouth, or if you suddenly feel a cold, stop eating it and talk to your doctor.
2) The other problem today is that strawberries are often generously sprayed with pesticides. It would even be the fruit that contains the most pesticides. And rinsing them with water is not enough to get rid of them.
In practice, I recommend that you eat fruit this summer! If you have the possibility, choose the unprocessed ones and eat as close as possible to the picking, to take advantage of their nutrients. But even if you only have access to pesticide-treated strawberries, the benefit probably outweighs the risk if you limit consumption to peak season, April through June!
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