Closeup of goji berries

I’m gonna be doing a little series of posts on superfoods. It seems to be quite the hype at the moment and so I wanted to know why certain foods are a superfood, so in doing a little bit of investigation I thought…. why not share it here too. Sooo… the first one in the line of superfoods is one I tend to have in the house always and that is the small red berry also known as goji berry.

Funny enough this little red devil is a family member of the potato. Now you didn’t see that one coming, now did you? Originally from Asia, you can find it in the Netherlands in the wild but only sporadically. Before the berry is dried, it is roughly 1,5 to 2 cm big and very juicy. I haven’t been to find out why they are mostly sold in the dried form so if anyone knows? I’m guessing it is a lot easier to keep them in that state ofcourse but I’ve never seen any fresh berries around.

The list of positive effects on your health from this berry are so long that upon reading it I went ‘Yeah, right!’ because if half of it is true, we should all be eating this berry every day. It has 18 amino acids, 21 minerals, anti-oxidants and polysacharides who help your immune system and give you a better resistance against the nasty things like flu, cold etc. It’s incrredibly good for your digestive system and it increases your appetite (I’m not sure I need that last one though!)

Closeup of goji berries

This potent little berry even is claimed to have some influence on your sexdrive, enhances your sleep, brings your bloodsugar in balance and lowers cholesterol… I wasn’t joking when I said the list is long! I don’t have a lot of recipes to show you which include goji berries sadly but I should be giving you some more soon I hope.

Because if you want to use this berry more often, what to do with it? In it’s dried state it is a bit of a chew to get through, so while it is lovely in salads, I always let it soak just a little bit in the dressing. Just pop a handful in, leave it to stand for a few minutes and it takes the biggest chew of and makes them softer. The same goes for adding them to your smoothie. Works really well, but soak them in a bit of water first and they will mix better.

If you have any recipes with goji berries please leave a link in the comments! I’d be interested to find out!

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