Cranberry, also known as lingonberry or small cranberry, is the fruit of a plant in the heath family, Vaccinium subgenus Oxycoccus. The flowers are deep pink and arranged in a raceme. Its taste is often described as both bitter and sour. The fruit is a bright red, skin-covered berry that grows on a low-lying vine. In Chinese, it is called "he mei" which means crane berry, because early settlers found that its flower shape resembled the head and beak of a sandhill crane. Cranberries have a unique sweet and sour taste which is refreshing.
In 1677, the North American colonies offered British King Charles II gifts of native produce including two large barrels of Indian corn, three thousand codfish, and three large barrels of cranberries. After a long journey, the corn and fish had rotted, but the cranberries were presented fresh and intact before the king, thus leading to the fame of cranberries. Not only was it a nutritional food for the Native Americans, it was also used for wound healing and reportedly proved quite effective when applied to arrow wounds. Later on, sailors discovered that it could prevent scurvy caused by vitamin deficiency during long journeys, so they often carried it with them.
Distributed Regions
Cranberries are mainly distributed in the cold regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with wild varieties found in the northeastern part of China. The world's main production areas are in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, British Columbia, Quebec, Chile, and a small part of northeastern Europe. The US accounts for 95% of the world's production, with Massachusetts being the birthplace of cranberries. In the United States, along with Concord grapes and blueberries, cranberries are known as the three traditional fruits of North America.
Like blueberries, cranberries are evergreen shrubs with strong cold resistance. In China, they only grow in the cold regions of the northeast and are one of its specialties, known as "Ya Ge Da" or "northern red bean". They flower from June to July and bear small, round, red fruit in August. Wild cranberry plants are very short, only 10-15 cm tall, with tough and thick leaves. The mature berries are blood-red, plump, and firm, with a pure taste and stable quality, making them the main source of domestic cranberries.
Wild cranberries in China grow in relatively cold places, generally at elevations above 700 meters, where the temperature can reach minus 40 degrees Celsius in winter. They are creeping and rooted in the humus layer of dead branches and leaves, with no reliable water source, relying on natural rain and the dew produced by the large temperature difference between day and night to nourish their roots. Wild cranberries need to be picked by hand, with pickers walking deep into the forest to do so.
Harvesting Process
Cranberries begin to flower and bear fruit after approximately three years of growth and can be harvested for 50-70 years. Unlike other agricultural products, they grow in low-lying soft marshes, with fruits growing on long vines that have been growing for a long time. The berries are hidden under the leaves, close to the moist ground, making them difficult to harvest. In earlier times, farmers would manually harvest cranberries, but later on, mechanical methods were introduced to improve efficiency. In the 1960s, farmers further reformed the harvesting process and discovered that cranberries could float in water, which led to the popular practice of flooding the cranberry fields and then scooping up the floating cranberries, known as water harvesting.
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Fresh cranberries are harvested using a "dry-picking" method, where a small-scale harvester similar to a lawn mower is used to remove the berries from the vines. The fruit is then transported to a conveyor belt and stored. To protect the vines, helicopters are often used to transport the cranberries. In earlier times, people used a "berry picker" tool to manually pick cranberries, which is still used for small-scale manual harvesting in Northern Europe, Canada, and northeastern China. Since wild cranberry areas in northeastern China are relatively small, most of them are still picked by hand for better protection of the wild plants.
Nutrients of Cranberries
Cranberries are rich in nutrients, with 88% water content and other organic acids, vitamin C, flavonoids, anthocyanins, A-type proanthocyanidins, and other substances collectively known as phytochemicals, which have various biological activities.
(1)A-type proanthocyanidins
The unique molecular structure of cranberry allows it to come into contact with the external agglutinin of bacteria's flagella, preventing the bacteria from binding to cell receptors. Through this competitive inhibition, cranberries exhibit effective antibacterial adhesion properties.
(2)Anthocyanins
Cranberries have a high content of flavonoids that have a strong absorption effect on ultraviolet rays and microwaves.
(3)Flavonols
Flavonoids in cranberries have many biological activities, including antioxidant effects.
(4)Phenolic acids
Cranberries contain 28 types of phenolic compounds, which have a significant effect on inhibiting the growth of bacteria and directly affecting microbial metabolism.
(5)Plant fiber
Cranberries have a high content of plant fiber, which promotes intestinal peristalsis. Its fiber content is significantly higher than that of kiwi (29 g/kg) and apple (13 g/kg), respectively, being 1.4 and 3 times higher.
(6)In addition, cranberries also contain pectin, resveratrol, tannic acid, lignin, and many other health-promoting ingredients.