Cherries aren’t just red, luscious, juicily tangy and drop-dead tantalising to look at; their beauty is more than just skin deep. These tiny drupe summer fruits are packed with nutrition and benefits — with less than 100 calories and half-a-gram of fat per serving which wins them the approval of health freaks. Packed with water and fibre, dieticians recommend cherries if you’re looking to drop a few pounds.

This time of the year is a fruit lover’s dream come true. Not only do mangoes (the king of fruits) hold court on every fruit stand, beautiful, deep scarlet cherries do so too.

Enjoyed since time immemorial by the Romans, Greeks and Chinese alike, today, entire festivals are celebrated in July, in Michigan, USA around this fruit. In Pakistan, cherry trees are cultivated in the Northern areas, Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan. The 50 kinds of cherries grown globally can be broadly classified into tart and sweet cherries.

From a trim tummy to a good night’s sleep, cherries are packed with surprises

My earliest memories of cherries are of when I was a kid and had gone on vacation to Shangrila. I recall gorging on boxes of cherries just to make my lips red. This happens due to the pigments packed in this fruit which are polyphenolic flavonoid compounds known as anthocyanin glycosides which have potent antioxidant and anticarcinogenic features. These anthocyanins may help against chronic painful conditions such as gout arthritis, muscle complications and sports injuries.

If you’re suffering from neurosis, insomnia and headaches, cherries might just be a delightful natural option to treat these conditions. That’s because melatonin, the other anti-oxidant found in cherries is known to have soothing effects on neurons in the brain, calms the nerves, curbs irritability and regulates the sleep cycle.

Other flavonoid polyphenolic anti-oxidants such as lutein, zea-xanthin and beta carotene play the role of a shield against harmful free radicals and reactive oxygen species which may cause aging, cancers and various disease processes.

These tiny fruits also offer a small portion of zinc, iron, potassium, and manganese and a generous helping of copper. Potassium helps regulate heart rate and blood pressure. The anti-inflammatory properties of cherries are effective in reducing risk factors for heart disease as they battle against free radicals. The boron in cherries helps increase bone health as part of a magnesium and calcium enriched diet. Like many fruits, cherries contain vitamin C, lauded for healthy skin, strong tendons, ligaments, blood vessels and cartilage. It also helps heal wounds, and keeps teeth and bones strong.

When shopping, choose cherries carefully as they have a brief shelf life. Usually fruit vendors arrange the good ones neatly on top of the rotting ones, crammed beneath in cardboard boxes. Select cherries that have bright, shiny skin with the green stalk attached at the top end of the fruit. Once bought they should be rinsed well and refrigerated before consumption.

Relish cherries with your cereal for breakfast, in a salad for lunch or as a healthy dessert after dinner — they will fit effortlessly into every meal. Popularly used in making desserts, cocktails, salads, fillings for cakes and pies, cherries are every culinary artist’s favourite ingredient. If for nothing else, they are much desired to sit pretty on top of sweet treats like puddings and cupcakes.

Yet, the best way to enjoy cherries is as nature intended — raw and fresh which will help you benefit from its many health pros. That’s because if you blend them, you lose out on fibre; if you have them canned you get additional sugar and freezing them can rob them off antioxidants.

So this summer, be sure to make the most of their brief guest appearance of cherries on fruit stands because you’ll have to wait for an entire long year to do so again.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, July 10th, 2016