Cranberries: Beyond the Juice

In typical juice processing, the fruit is frozen, thawed, enzymatically treated, and pressed to extract the liquid and some dissolved solids. It is mostly made up of water and fruit sugars with a host of nutrients. The remaining materials not recovered in the juice extraction process have in the past been regarded as waste and usually ended up in landfills.

We have been continually reminded by our parents to eat the skin and other less desirable parts of foods such as potatoes and fruits that we commonly eat. These parts are where most of the original nutrition lies. Cranberries that have been harvested for the juice use 85% of the fruit, leaving the solids (skin, pomace and seeds) to waste. This waste is where the most powerful nutrients lie in the fruit.

In that unwanted waste stream we have a wide variety of nutrients that include oil, phytosterols, vitamin E, phospholipids, antioxidants, EFAs, fiber, minerals and proteins (all of which we will later discuss). We simply don’t have access to many of these compounds by drinking juice nor can we get substantial amounts of these materials by consuming the fruit in its organic state. Humans and other mammals lack the enzymes and organs needed to unlock and utilize certain powerful nutrients that lie in this wondrous fruit.