Healing with Food Newsletter

Cherries

Accompanying recipe: Cherry Bounce

In addition to being pleasurably sweet, another great thing about cherries is they’re one of our few remaining seasonal fruits. Get your fill now while they're at their peak.  Because cherries are meltingly tender and juicy, they’re not great shippers and they get squishy when stored.

Yes, during our winter months, you can buy air-shipped Argentinean or New Zealand cherries. But while these imports look—and approximately taste—like cherries, they’re mushy textured and not much fun to eat. So why bother?  Instead, feast on fresh cherries from mid June to early August.

Tree-ripened is a key cherry word. While some fruits—like pears, avocados and bananas—ripen after harvest, cherries don’t. Once picked, a cherry doesn’t get sweeter and under-ripe cherries are hard and short of flavor.

Look for shiny, plump cherries with fresh stems and unbroken skin. Favor full-colored fruits that are soft but firm. Avoid cherries with dull, wrinkled skin, bruises or white spots that indicate mold.

With cherries, please favor organic. Commercial cherries are sprayed from 8-10 times during their growth cycle with various pesticides and other chemicals. Of all fruits and vegetables, cherries rank among the highest with toxic chemical residues.

While most fruits are cooling, cherries are a warming food that increases vital energy. According to traditional Chinese medicine, cherries tone the spleen-pancreas, liver, and kidney functions. Cherries remove excess body acids and blood stagnation and, when eaten regularly, are therefore therapeutic for gout, paralysis, numbness in the extremities, and rheumatic pain in the lower half of the body.

The fruit contains several phytonutrients that research suggests may help fight cancer. One such compound, perillyl alcohol, binds to protein molecules to inhibit cancer’s growth signals.

Cherry Bounce

Cherry Bounce is an easy to make and tasty liqueur that—if you need an excuse—also happens to be an excellent medicinal remedy. To ease numb extremities, carpel tunnel syndrome, gout or arthritis, daily drink a jigger full of cherry bounce.

May you be well nourished!

Rebecca Wood