Cranberries

denverpilot

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Note to self.

Remember to listen to that little voice that says 100% cranberry juice tastes like ass, compared to cranberry juice cocktail.

I forgot. Ugh. Cranberries suck. By themselves anyway.

Just putting this here to remind myself.
 
BTW, it tastes a lot better if "cocktail" includes those mixed with adult booze.
 
I am in to juicing and last week I juiced cranberries for the first time.
it was off the charts sour/bitter.
 


LOL. Dunno.

Side hurts a little like one after weeks of back problems. The back pain would have easily masked it.

Not gonna lie. I'm not 100% yet. But I'm enjoying not getting stuck in chairs anymore.

Laughed at DocMirror's "don't get old" post, though! ;)
 
I am not a huge fan of cranberry juice unless it is mixed with vodka, then it's not too bad, especially after the second one! :D
 
Craisins (dried cranberries) are really good.
 
Yup yup!
Good stuff.

I add a small amount of these to my grazing food of almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, pecans, and quarter cup of dark chocolate chips.

Having a small baggie of this at my desk each day keeps me from getting triple cheeseburger cravings when I go home to dinner.
 
I am not a huge fan of cranberry juice unless it is mixed with vodka, then it's not too bad, especially after the second one! :D
Hard to take at 8AM though. And if I did, I would have to have a couple or six or eight. Then NO work would get done until... Well who cares!!!
 
The women seem to like the cranberries in their cosmos.
 
Cherries work as good as cranberries for UTI and they're better for arthritis.

Taste better too.
 
I'm drinking cranberry juice mixed with a little bit of lemon juice right now. I actually prefer it over the cocktail. Somehow the bitter and tart cancel out.
 
Heard cranberries are the number one (legal) crop in dollars to acres.
 
For ages I insisted on cranberry sauce for my turkey, straight out of the can (complete with the crimp rings and all molded into it). About ten years ago I had a recipe for port wine and asian spice sauce and found out it is pathetically easy to make it from scratch. Not used the canned stuff since.

One cup of liquid (water, cranberry juice, fruit juice, wine or whatever).
One cup of sugar
One bag (12 oz) of cranberries (around here you can't get cranberries outside the Thanksgiving-Christmas season but they freeze just fine).

Heat the liquid and disolve the sugar in it. Bring to a boil and add the cranberries. Boil for at least ten minutes. Smoosh the cranberries to the level of chunkiness you want (the bag suggests running it through a sieve but if you are going through that you might as well pour it into soup can to mold ...).

The asian spice/port recipe is the above except that I steep a mixture of spices (cinnamon, star anise, green cardamon, black cardamon) into the cup of port for about ten minutes and then strain out the spice junk before adding the sugar.
 
Cranberries are especially full of pectin, so they set up into a jelly all by themselves. And yes, they are incredibly tart. I don't actually use them for much because of their very strong flavor.

I believe the thing about dollars to acres. Cranberries are easily the most automated fruit to harvest.
 
Pure sugar. Only way to make them edible.

What my grandfather said of crab apples "A whole lot of sugar makes a few of them taste pretty good."

John
 
Heard cranberries are the number one (legal) crop in dollars to acres.
Didn't know that.

It needs to be valuable enough to sponsor all the marketing campaigns needed to get people to consume the stuff. Jelly it, sweeten it, dry it, mix it, do something to it to make it palatable.

I like my Cranberries jellied and with can bands showing as well.

The cranberry bogs are a pretty cool sight flying over central/south Jersey in the late summer/fall. All the ponds in the pine forests have a red crest on them where the berries have been floated.
 
Cranberries are especially full of pectin, so they set up into a jelly all by themselves. And yes, they are incredibly tart. I don't actually use them for much because of their very strong flavor.

Yeah, provided you cook them long enough to release it. If you rush it it never really sets up well.
 
Cranberries are especially full of pectin, so they set up into a jelly all by themselves. And yes, they are incredibly tart. I don't actually use them for much because of their very strong flavor.

In addition to the pectin, they have some anti-fungal and anti-microbial effects allowing one to produce preserves with less sugar.
 
In addition to the pectin, they have some anti-fungal and anti-microbial effects allowing one to produce preserves with less sugar.

One can, but most actually put in more to overcome the tart flavor of the cranberries themselves.
 
The list of ingredients in a box of raisins is just one: raisins. In a box of craisins it is two: cranberries followed by sugar. The sugar could be as much as 49%, but there seems to be no way to know. I wish they told you how much sugar, so I could make a better choice in deciding which to eat for a snack.
 
The list of ingredients in a box of raisins is just one: raisins. In a box of craisins it is two: cranberries followed by sugar. The sugar could be as much as 49%, but there seems to be no way to know. I wish they told you how much sugar, so I could make a better choice in deciding which to eat for a snack.

Good point. I'll change my source to the local "whole foods" type store and their bulk dried fruit section. Then check that label to make sure sugar isn't an added item.
 
Good point. I'll change my source to the local "whole foods" type store and their bulk dried fruit section. Then check that label to make sure sugar isn't an added item.
Without the sugar, you won't want to eat them. That's the cranberry's challenge.
 
The list of ingredients in a box of raisins is just one: raisins. In a box of craisins it is two: cranberries followed by sugar. The sugar could be as much as 49%, but there seems to be no way to know. I wish they told you how much sugar, so I could make a better choice in deciding which to eat for a snack.

Unsweetened cranberries have 120 calories and about 10g of sugar per ounce.
Anything over 10g is obviously added.

The one typical bag of sweetened dried cranberries is 26g of sugar (which means not only does it have 16g of sugar it has 10g less cranberry) which means (as you noted) that it's nearly 50% added sugar.
 
Unsweetened cranberries have 120 calories and about 10g of sugar per ounce.
Anything over 10g is obviously added.

The one typical bag of sweetened dried cranberries is 26g of sugar (which means not only does it have 16g of sugar it has 10g less cranberry) which means (as you noted) that it's nearly 50% added sugar.

Why is it that things that taste so good are so bad for you??
 
Why is it that things that taste so good are so bad for you??

Over consumption.

As a DM2, one starlight mint candy in mid afternoon barely wakes up my meter.

But years of 3x/day Double Big Gulps of Coca-cola and Dr.Pepper is what killed my beta cells.
 
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Over consumption.

As a DM2, one starlight mint candy in mid afternoon barely wakes up my meter.

But years of 3x/day Double Big Gulps of Coca-cola and Dr.Pepper is what killed my beta cells.

I gave those up in my early 20's when the belt kept getting tighter, never missed them, still trying to kill off my penchant for carbs though, it's a tough battle.
 
Obviously you have no experience with the kitchens of Steinholme.

Please feel free to share recipes, I have gained 20 pounds of lard over the past few months that I will be shedding over the next couple of months and always looking for good ideas!!
 
I gave those up in my early 20's when the belt kept getting tighter, never missed them, still trying to kill off my penchant for carbs though, it's a tough battle.

Generally, I've had some success with substitutions. Replace high sugar/fat/carb with something that fills the craving, but is higher in nutrition than bad stuff. Then eat at a much slower rate.

Example, the KIND bars, especially the Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt, eating one over a 20-30 minute period in small bites, do well to fill the sweet, salty, crunchy craving. Another is buying bulk seeds and nuts and make my own grazing mix. This way I control the "nutrition label" items such as sodium, sugar, etc. Added benefit is I can get the good nutrients from sunflower seats, pumkin seeds, walnuts, pecans, almonds, etc.

Eating slower makes a big difference. I'll cut the 6-inch sub in half, eat the first, read my iPad for a short bit, then eat the 2nd half. And I'm just as satisfied as if I wolfed down the 12-inch.

Oh, and switched the subs to salads. Cut out the bread, schmooze the counter person into adding some extra meat, add extra veg and spinach....


Something else that can help is a food diary app for your smart phone. LoseIt! is my app of choice for this. And there are many other good ones to select from. But knowing and seeing what you eat and how it adds up during the day, really helps you know how your food choices are helping or hindering obtaining that health goal.
 
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Generally, I've had some success with substitutions. Replace high sugar/fat/carb with something that fills the craving, but is higher in nutrition than bad stuff. Then eat at a much slower rate.

Example, the KIND bars, especially the Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt, eating one over a 20-30 minute period in small bites, do well to fill the sweet, salty, crunchy craving. Another is buying bulk seeds and nuts and make my own grazing mix. This way I control the "nutrition label" items such as sodium, sugar, etc. Added benefit is I can get the good nutrients from sunflower seats, pumkin seeds, walnuts, pecans, almonds, etc.

Eating slower makes a big difference. I'll cut the 6-inch sub in half, eat the first, read my iPad for a short bit, then eat the 2nd half. And I'm just as satisfied as if I wolfed down the 12-inch.

Oh, and switched the subs to salads. Cut out the bread, schmooze the counter person into adding some extra meat, add extra veg and spinach....


Something else that can help is a food diary app for your smart phone. LoseIt! is my app of choice for this. And there are many other good ones to select from. But knowing and seeing what you eat and how it adds up during the day, really helps you know how your food choices are helping or hindering obtaining that health goal.


I'm going to cut out all the extra little snacks I have during the day and substitute fruit and veggies. I have a bowl of cereal in the morning which has gotten progressively larger, so I'm going to measure a single serving, those two steps alone will probably save me about 800 to 1200 calories a day. Plus my activity level is getting back to normal after knee surgery. I'm hoping that will be enough to get some of it off, I'd like to be 20 lbs lighter by March........ we'll see, if I don't see results in a month, then I will do weight watchers, which worked in the past, but I feel a little bad going to the meetings because I don't have that much too lose, maybe 10 % of my body weight, where others in there have much loftier goals tougher work ahead of them, but it does work.
 
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