food trends Archives - Wild Blueberries

As we reflect on this year’s health food highlights, it’s clear it was a breakthrough year for purple. Purple cauliflower made its foray onto our plates, along with purple asparagus, purple sweet potatoes, purple corn, and purple fruits like elderberries, acai, and Wild Blueberries.

Why?

According to the 2017 Whole Foods Top 10 Trends, “Richly colored purple foods are popping up everywhere [and] the power of purple goes beyond the vibrant color and often indicates nutrient density and antioxidants.”

Here at Wild Blueberries we’re excited that our superfruit and its similarly colored peers are catching some well-deserved attention. We’ve been extolling the incredible health benefits of Wild Blueberries for more than 20 years. Among their nutritional highlights, they are:

Naturally high in fiber (72% more fiber than regular blueberries)
Contain 2X the antioxidants of regular blueberries
Are a low sugar fruit, with a score of 53 on the Glycemic Index scale
Are an excellent source of manganese
Are naturally low in fat
Have only 80 calories per cup

Over the last 20 years, powerful group of health researchers has met annually in Maine to share their Wild Blueberry research and collaborate. Many have been credited with groundbreaking research that advances our understanding of how these tiny berries can make a big impact on human health. Their work includes:

Antioxidant Research
Brain Health and Cognitive Research
Cancer Research
Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome Research
Gut Health Research
Heart Health Research
Metabolism Research

If you haven’t explored the Purple Power trend, it’s not too late -– the benefits of eating healthy food do not expire at midnight of the New Year! To help you go purple, here’s a collection of some of our favorite Wild Blueberry recipes for any time of day and any time of year. Remember, you can always find Wild Blueberries in the frozen aisle of your supermarket.

Wild Blueberry Ricotta Pancakes

If breakfast isn’t your favorite meal of the day, this Wild Blueberry recipe will have you asking why. The best part about these pancakes? Skip the maple syrup and load up on the antioxidant-rich Wild Blueberry sauce!

Wild Blueberry Orzo with Asparagus

This delicious salad from Danielle Omar, MS RDN, will remind you of summer. The Wild Blueberry vinaigrette is so zesty and fresh that you’ll want to try it on just about everything. You can easily keep this as a side dish, or turn it into a main dish by adding chicken or salmon.

Wild Blueberry Flax Muffin Smoothie

We can’t forget one of our favorite smoothies from 2017! This equally stunning and delicious smoothie was created by Charlotte Martin for our Wild Your Smoothie recipe competition. It’s full of flavor and protein to make a perfect grab-and-go meal for those busy mornings.

Blueberry, Tomato and Goat Cheese Naan Pizza

Our friends over at Backyard Farms let us share this creation, and we cannot get over it! It’s super easy to make, full of color and we love the pairing of flavors – especially goat cheese, Wild Blueberries and balsamic vinegar.

Wild Blueberry Crumb Cake

Once you tell your guests you have a treat that’s loaded with antioxidants, they’ll find it hard to refuse. This recipe from Danielle Omar, MS, RDN is an anytime-of-day delight: perfect with coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon, or a delicious dessert.

Here in Maine, eating wild foods, either through hunting, fishing or foraging has long been a cultural pastime. But when you look to the mainstream, it seems that many Americans have either forgotten, or not yet fully embraced, the idea of eating wild foods, despite the fact that many of them – like Wild Blueberries, wild mushrooms and common greens are right at their fingertips. Thankfully, many cultures in Europe and regions within the United States still engage in the enjoyment of wild foods, and today there are a growing number of spirited chefs who are taking wild foods to the highest culinary levels.

One such chef is David Levi at Vinland who is creating a stunning range of inspired small plates in his beautiful Portland, Maine restaurant. Chef David is part of a community of Maine chefs who are courageously experimenting with local foods and opening their own restaurants at a dizzying pace. Many of these chefs are using significant quantities of wild foods, including seaweed, seafood, wild mushrooms, and Wild Blueberries.

Chef David recently created an exquisite five-course meal for an event in New York City using Wild Blueberries in nearly every dish. The goal of the dinner was to gather a small group of health and foodie thought leaders to celebrate the benefits of wild foods because of their superior taste and health advantages. The dinner was designed to posit the theory that wild foods are actually more accessible than most Americans believe. For example, Wild Blueberries can be found in your grocery store freezer aisle; wild seafood is available in the form of a Maine lobster, and wild greens can be gathered right in your own backyard. Our hope is that these health and foodie influencers will encourage their readers, followers, and fellow chefs to integrate wild into their daily diets and menus.

Below is a collage of images showing raw ingredients and final dishes from our incredible wild dinner. We hope they inspire you to experiment with wild foods right in your own kitchen.

First Course

Raw Ingredients: Salanova Salad with Blue Cheese and Wild Blueberry Vinaigrette