Blueberries: Yup, still healthy (and yummy, too)

These days, it’s almost boring to say that blueberries are  good for you. I’ve got a lot of blueberries at the moment, and every time I share them with a friend, he or she invariably makes some comment about how these little orbs are packed with cancer-fighting antioxidants or that they keep your brain healthy and keep your memory from fading or that they’re loaded with fiber, which is good for your digestion, helps fight cancer and keeps your blood-sugar levels stable.

OK, alright! Blueberries are truly a phenomenally healthy food — and they fly in the face of the old-fashioned wisdom that anything nutritious has to have the flavor and texture of cardboard (or something worse). What could be more delicious than fresh blueberries?

In a column earlier this year (when my backyard berries first showed signs of ripening), I wrote a quick summary of blueberry benefits (you can find it online at tcextra.com and search for the blueberry story on our health page in the June 11, 2009, issue). But I didn’t go into detail then on the anthocynanins that help make these such an all-around superfruit.

Blueberries have lots of cancer-fighting, disease-defeating vitamin C, and they’re loaded with fiber. And they also have a lot of anthocynanins, which are responsible for protecting some of the more mundane functions in the body. They kind of keep the shop clean and healthy, and they protect your body from relatively everyday stuff such as varicose veins, hemorrhoids, peptic ulcers and cataracts and glaucoma.

Anthocynanins are also believed to boost the power of vitamin C, and to help it protect your collagen matrix and, therefore, your body tissue and capillary veins. They do this by keeping your collagen clean of cancer-causing free radicals and other cellular ruffians that want to cling to the collagen.

Collagen is a word we hear too often on beauty infomercials, but it’s not just something plastic surgeons and dermatologists worry about. It’s also the most abundant protein in our bodies and it’s the base of all our body tissue.

In a funny way, these sweet little blueberries are very similar, nutritionally, to dark, leafy green vegetables: They are full of fiber. And they help fight cancer in many of the same ways. Both are believed to be full of kaempferol, which has been shown to keep ovarian cancer from developing.

And like the dark, leafy greens, blueberries are believed to strengthen your eyes and to fight macular degeneration.

You could write a book, really, about all the great things that blueberries do for you.  I planted six bushes in my yard, to ensure that I’ll always have access to them (at less than $5 per box). I have so many berries this year that I’m freezing them by the bagful. I visited the whfoods.com Web site this week to see if freezing will leech away any of their nutrients. Happily, the answer was “no.†Some of the vitamin C will be lost, but since blueberries have such high levels of C, this isn’t a problem. The other antioxidants apparently also keep their vigor after freezing, as do the anthocyanins.

My husband and my daughter and I keep a plate of blueberries out on the counter and we snatch a handful whenever we walk by. My friend Melissa, on the other hand, says she can’t stand plain blueberries — although she loves to toss a handful of frozen blues into a fruit shake, with some yogurt and a banana.

To keep me from getting bored with them (and with the raspberries that are also at the height of their glory right now), I like to keep a bowl of lemon curd in the ’fridge at all times. It’s incredibly easy to make and lasts for a week or so. I go out of my way to get eggs from the Wike Brothers farm on White Hollow Road (they are also sold at LaBonne’s in Salisbury and at Jam Foods in Sharon); they have the yellowest yolks you’ve ever seen, which in turn gives wonderful color to the lemon curd — which, for those of you who have not been lucky enough to taste it, is a kind of tart,  light custard.

To really go to summer-food heaven, top a bowl of berries with a dollop of lemon curd and an equally large dollop of whipped cream.

Lemon curd

Adapted from Mark Bittman’s “How To Cook Everythingâ€

Makes about 2 cups

3 lemons (look for ones that are a decent size but that feel soft and juicy)

1 stick unsalted butter (8 tablespoons), cut into chunks

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

Zest the lemons; I use a microplane grater, which creates wonderful snowy zest. You might also try the fine side of a regular grater. If you end up with largish pieces of rind, mince them so they are as small as possible.

Juice the lemons. I recommend the bartenders’ trick of rolling each lemon firmly on a hard surface, which releases the juice. I usually squeeze the lemons by hand into a bowl or measuring cup, and then strain out the seeds and any little bits of pulp.

Combine the juice, zest, sugar and butter in medium-sized saucepan over low heat or the top of a double boiler over simmering water. I’ve experimented with all kinds of pans (ceramic-on-iron, copper, Calphalon) and can’t say for sure which is the best pot. You want something that will diffuse the heat well, because you don’t want to put any curdle in your curd.

Cook, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves. Don’t wait for the butter to melt, though, because at that point the liquid will be too hot. Beat the eggs and stir them into the lemon mixture, making sure your heat is as low as it can be.

Stir constantly from this point, until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon. This should take about 10 minutes. Don’t let it boil or get too hot, or the egg will cook and you’ll see little bits of cooked white floating up from the bottom of the pan. If this happens, run the finished curd through a sieve.

Taste the curd before storing it, covered, in the refrigerator. If it’s very tart (the lemons will, of course, be different every time you make this), add a teaspoon of butter. It will quickly melt in, and will tone down the sour citrus.