Every Monday should begin with berries. A dear friend went foraging in the blackberry and blueberry patches of Carbondale this weekend, and I got the surprise enjoyment of her generosity and flawlessly sweet fruit. Simple pleasures. Straw-rasp-cran-blue-and-black berries are all loaded with anthocyanidins, a subclass of a pigment group you may have heard of called flavonoids. They are known for reducing oxidative stress that can lead to disease... cancer, Alzheimer's, and fatty plaque inflammation on your good old arteries.
But what I love most about this fruit is the color. These anthocyanidins get their incredible bright hue from the positive charge on their oxygen molecule.
Our body clearly thrives off of oxygen. We need it to breathe and it is vital to all organ function. For some reason, the positive charge is the most interesting to me. If the charge were negative, the fruit would be colorless, white. Implications?
When we are without enough oxygen, we end up blue; without enough iron, which carries the oxygen, we end up colorless and white. When plants and trees are taken care of with light and water, they give off oxygen, we breathe it in, and we function optimally.
It looks like the earth serves us with great detail.
It even reminds us to eat bright and breathe deep.
If you are thinking about some down-home berry picking of your own, check out locations in Missouri and Southern Illinois.