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Stretch Island Original Fruit Leather, Summer Strawberry, 0.5-Ounce Bars (Pack of 30)

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List Price : $17.00 Price : $12.80

Product Description

100% Fruit snack. And now from our fabulous Fruit Leather Tree: scrumptious, flat strawberries, sweet as can be! You'll find when you eat them, they're best by the bunch, so pack a sack full as part of your lunch. Diabetics/Diet Exchange: 1 fruit.

• Pack of 30 half-ounce bars (total of 15 ounces)
• All-natural, 100%-fruit leather featuring strawberries
• No sugar added; gluten-free; dairy-free; certified kosher
• One bar equal to one fruit-exchange in diabetic diet
• Made on Stretch Island, WA

Stretch Island Original Fruit Leather, Summer Strawberry, 0.5-Ounce Bars (Pack of 30) Reviews

Stretch Island Original Fruit Leather, Summer Strawberry, 0.5-Ounce Bars (Pack of 30) Reviews

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review

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56 Reviews

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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful Outstanding!!, December 13, 2009 By  OrangeCrush "Still shooting with Film!" (Farmington Hills, MI USA) - See all my reviews    Amazon Verified Purchase( What's this?) This review is from: Stretch Island Original Fruit Leather, Summer Strawberry, 0.5-Ounce Bars (Pack of 30) (Grocery) I used to buy 100% natural fruit roll-ups at a local fruit market down the street from me. They were sold individually for like 65 cents apiece and were AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS. They were nothing like the fruit roll ups for kids you find in the grocery stores today. Those things are gross and have no resemblance whatsoever to a real fruit roll up. I used to literally buy like $50 worth at a time and would just eat one after another after another. In particular the Apricot and Strawberry flavors were just outstanding. Anyways, I went to the market one day and they had gone out of business. That was about 8-9 years ago. I tried finding a different store that carried them and to this day I have been unsuccessful. I tried finding them using the internet but unfortunately I just cant remember the name of the company to save my life. I just remember they were sold individually, were round and actually quite large in diameter, and they came attached to a piece of cellophane. I came... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink   Comments (5) 9 of 10 people found the following review helpful Great Product, If Amazon Sends You Fresh Ones, March 31, 2009 By  rc "Adopt a shelter pet PetFinder." (USA) - See all my reviews Amazon Verified Purchase( What's this?) This review is from: Stretch Island Original Fruit Leather, Summer Strawberry, 0.5-Ounce Bars (Pack of 30) (Grocery) Gave only 4 starts because recently Amazon sent me a batch that was tough and hard to chew into. But the product itself is great if shipped fresh. The fresh ones last for a couple of months. But if you get a hard batch, recommend getting replacements because they are really hard to bite into and sometimes I feel like my teeth may fall out trying to rip into the hard pieces. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink   Comment 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful Yum! Yum!, January 9, 2007 By  Me and My House - See all my reviews This review is from: Stretch Island Original Fruit Leather, Summer Strawberry, 0.5-Ounce Bars (Pack of 30) (Grocery) We've been buying all flavors of Stretch Island's fruit leathers for years - strawberry is one of our favorites. These are delicious. The kids love them. And no added sugars or other ingredients. Just pure fruit in a convenient way to take it along. My diaper bag and purse always have a few in them for the kids - and me - to snack on. But I do prefer their organic ones. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink   Comment (1)

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Fruits For Diabetics - Learn Which Fruits Diabetics Should Eat and How to Eat Them

Should Diabetics Eat Fruit?

This is a tricky question. On the one hand, most of the calories in fruit come from carbohydrates which of course is something diabetics have to watch very closely or their blood sugar may spike. Additionally, most fruits have a high glycemic index compared to low carb high protein foods. On the other hand, some fruits are extremely high in antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and fiber if eaten in their unadulterated raw form. There is no question that fiber helps regulate blood sugar. Scientific studies are rapidly proving the powerful health benefits of antioxidants. These include antioxidants that help regulate insulin and help our cells become more sensitive to insulin, i.e. they help reverse diabetes. They also include antioxidants that help fight off health complications that diabetics are more susceptible to including heart disease, premature aging, stroke, and cancer. The pectin found in apples has been shown to improve glucose metabolism. Early studies show grapefruit can also lower blood sugar.

My take on this is that most diabetics should eat fruit BUT they should be very prudent about how they go about it. The primary purpose of this article is to give those with diabetes (and those who love them) practical information they can use to make wise decisions about which fruits they eat and how to eat them.

One important caveat: From a strict botanical perspective, some foods which we call "vegetables" are technically fruits but I am not including a discussion of these in this article. I do want to mention that many of these "vegetable fruits" are superstars in the diabetic diet. For example, a medium-sized peeled cucumber which is technically a fruit has only 3 net carbs and an extremely low glycemic load of 1 plus they are chock full of nutrients and fiber.

What Are the Best Fruits For Diabetics?

The best fruits for diabetics, taking all important factors into consideration, are berries. Relative to other fruits, berries are low carb and have a low glycemic index (20 - 45 GI, usually on the lower end of this). They are also exceptionally high in fiber and antioxidants. Within the most common berries consumed in the US, raspberries and blackberries have less carb and a lower glycemic index than blueberries but you can adjust your serving size to compensate for this. For example, a 100 gram serving (about 2/3 cup) of raspberries or blackberries has approximately 6 net carbs whereas the same volume of blueberries has 12 net carbs. So, if you're keeping your carbs super low you may want to reduce your serving size of blueberries to 1/3 - 1/2 cup.

Diabetics Should Favor Fruits That Are Relatively Low Carb, Have a Relatively Low Glycemic Number, and Are Relatively High In Fiber

Besides berries which I've identified as the #1 choice overall, a small serving of apples (12-26 g/fruit), citrus (8-22 g/fruit), and stone fruits (1-19 g/fruit) a few times a week can be part of a healthy diet for most diabetics. These fruits have a relatively low glycemic index and relatively low carb per fruit. Stone fruits are fruits that have a single large pit (the "stone") in the middle with a sweet fleshy outer layer around it. These include cherries (1 g/fruit), peaches (11-19 g/fruit), plums (7 g/fruit), apricots (3 g/fruit), and nectarines (12-13 g/fruit). For your easy reference, I've included the estimated range of net carbs in grams per fruit. If you're on a really low carb diet (less than 30 carbs per day usually) or you are gaining unwanted weight, you may have to really curtail fruits. It is interesting to note that stone fruits are all members of the genus Prunus which also includes almonds, a superstar in the diabetic diet, and that a peach pit looks a lot like an almond shell. The edible skins of fruits tend to be very high in fiber so be sure to eat your apple peels and that fuzzy peach skin!

Cantaloupe (aka ground melon), watermelon, and pineapple are examples of fruits that are very high in carb so you might want to eat them only occasionally.

Bananas Are Very Popular In the American Diet But...

Bananas are the most popular fruit in America, even surpassing apples and oranges. However, bananas have 17-31+ grams of carb and have an average glycemic index of 55 which can be much higher with a really ripe super sweet banana (the way I like 'em). If you really miss banana, I recommend eating them only 1-2 times a week and eating only half a banana as a single serving. Plus, you can pick out small bananas when you shop to lower the carb.

Diabetics Should Avoid Fruit Juice and Dried Fruit

Even if you drink the unsweetened kind, fruit juice contains little to no fiber and is very high in sugar with a high glycemic index. Because of this, even a small amount of juice can play haywire with your blood sugar levels. Plus, when you drink juice, you miss out on many nutrients you'd have in the actual whole fruit. Dried fruit highly concentrates the sugar and should therefore definitely be avoided by diabetics.

Eat Fruit With Other Foods

This is a very important point so pay close attention. When diabetics eat foods that are higher in carbs and have a higher glycemic index such as fruits, they should always try to eat some protein and healthy fat along with it. The protein and fat balances out the effect of the carbohydrates in the fruit and you will get less of a spike in your blood sugar. A really good combination seems to be eating fruit with nuts. You can also combine eating fruit with some low carb yogurt, cottage cheese, hard cheese, or eat your fruit as part of a full meal. I love eating a small bit of fruit as a dessert. Use common sense though. If your meal already has a significant number of other carbs (like grains), you may want to skip the fruit.

Try To Eat Fruit Earlier In the Day

It seems that for most diabetics fruit has less effect on their blood sugar levels if they eat it earlier in the day. So, try to eat your fruit as part of your breakfast or lunch. This is especially true if you are experiencing the "dawn phenomenon" where your early morning blood sugar readings are much higher than they were when you went to bed. In this case, you should definitely avoid eating fruit at night and see if that makes a difference.

Pay Attention To Your Whole Diet and Keep It In Balanced

Let's say you go on a beautiful summer picnic and you splurge on some very sweet watermelon (yum!). To compensate, you may want to watch your carbs more carefully for the rest of the day and maybe eat a lower carb dinner. If you just have to have a banana with your breakfast (I suggest eating half of a small banana), try to eat a lower carb lunch and limit your other carbs at breakfast.

Pay Very Careful Attention To Serving Size

The phrase "eat in moderation" takes on new meaning for the diabetic. Food is medicine for the diabetic and can even reverse diabetes if you know what to eat and stick to it but it can also exacerbate the disease if you eat the wrong foods. When it comes to eating carbohydrates, no matter how healthy food item is, serving size is the most important factor. Yes, fruits are healthy in many ways but if you are diabetic, it is crucial you do not over-indulge in fruit. Doing so bcould result in a huge spike in your blood sugar, and worse, if you over-indulge too often you could make your cells less receptive to insulin.

I know the natural tendency of most Americans is to pick out larger sized fruit, which is why cultivators select for it. However, a simple trick for diabetics who want to limit their carbs is to pick out smaller fruit. It is generally just as tasty as the bigger fruit. Let me give you a few examples to illustrate the carbs you can save by doing so. A six inch banana has 17 net carbs whereas a nine inch banana has 31 net carbs. That's a 14 carb difference! That's very significant. Even if you eat just half a banana, that's still a 7 carb difference. Try to pick out small bananas. A small tangerine is only 9 net carbs (clementines are only 8 net carbs) whereas a large tangerine is 14 net carbs. You may even want to pick tangerines over oranges because even a small orange is 16 net carbs which is more than the largest tangerine. If you really want to limit your carbs, you may want to pick apricots and plums (3 and 7 net carbs respectively) over peaches and nectarines (11-19 net carbs). It's hard to resist eating the entire peach and it's awfully messy to slice and leave half (but possible). With cherries, you can simply count out the number of cherries by the number of carbs you can afford since they are 1 net carb per cherry. How convenient of them (smile).

Be Careful, You May Be Eating More Carbs Than You Think

I think many diabetics and low carb dieters grossly underestimate the net carbs in the fruit they eat. There are many reasons for this.

It is easy to be fooled when you look up the nutritional values of fruit. The value you get is probably an average value. The average may not be as big or as ripe as the fruit you are actually eating. The tests may have been conducted with a different species or variety that is more or less sweet or has more or less fiber than the fruit you are actually eating. There is a lot of variation between varieties in fruit and it can make a HUGE difference in the actual nutritional values. Even if you are comparing the exact same variety/species, your fruit may have been grown in a different soil type. Bottom line, you need to take the nutrition values you find for fruit with a grain of salt and be very aware that the values can vary greatly - much more so than with other types of foods like meat and dairy.

Cultivators and food science geeks play with genetics of fruits in an effort to make us, the sugarophilic super size that please consumers that we are, happy. I've read that the sugar content in cantaloupe doubled between 1950 and 1999. The values for fruit in the USDA Food Database were recently updated because they were so underestimated because fruits have gotten so much bigger and sweeter.

When you pick out fruit, don't you tend to pick out the ripest, sweetest, most tantalizing fruit you can find? I know I do. In general, as a fruit ripens its carb quantity goes up, especially if it ripens before it is picked. Have you ever heard anyone say, "That fruit was as sweet as candy?"

Know Your Own Body

There seems to be more variability in how diabetics respond to fruit than just about any other food type. For some diabetics, eating a whole apple seems to be just fine while with others eating just half an apple can send their blood sugar soaring through the roof. For this reason, you need to do some very careful testing to see how your body responds to fruit so you will know what quantities and which fruits you can eat without causing ill effects. You'll want to keep the testing as simple as possible. Measure out a certain quantity of fruit, perhaps a half cup or whole cup of a fruit you'd like to eat, and test your blood sugar just before you eat it and then again 1.5 hours after you eat it. Compare these readings to what happens when you eat a low carb high protein snack at the same time of day under as many of the same conditions as possible. You can try increasing or decreasing the amount the next day depending on the initial result and you can try other favorite fruits. Keep in mind that many other factors such as other foods you eat around the same time, how much exercise you've recently gotten, how much sleep you had the night before, how stressed you are, what you do in that 1.5 hours between tests, etc, etc can all affect the results so you'll want to test more than once to see how consistent your results are. If your blood sugar does spike after eating a reasonable portion of fruit, I encourage you to re-test in a month or two if you adhere to a good and consistent low carb diabetic diet and make other healthy lifestyle changes during that time such as getting more exercise, sleeping more, and lowering stress. Once the body has had time to heal itself, i.e. once you've had time to reverse your diabetes, you will likely be less insulin resistant (this is what happened to me) and your body may be able to handle reasonable portions of fruit (and a few other carbs) without the spikes in blood sugar.
You CAN reverse diabetes by eating the right foods and by other natural means.

I am living proof of this and so are many other people who were diagnosed with diabetes but now have normal blood sugar levels and feel much healthier. My doctor could hardly believe the difference in my blood sugar readings after only a few weeks. Please visit my Reverse Diabetes Naturally website to learn more about how you too can reverse diabete...Reverse Diabetes Naturally


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Maxine_Fox

Purple mangosteen

The purple mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana), colloquially known simply as mangosteen, is a tropical evergreen tree believed to have originated in the Sunda Islands and the Moluccas of Indonesia. The tree grows from 7 to 25 m (20–80 ft) tall. The rind (exocarp) of the fruit, which is not edible, is a deep reddish purple when ripe. The fragrant edible flesh that surrounds each seed is botanically endocarp, i.e. the inner layer of the ovary. It is sweet and tangy, juicy, and somewhat fibrous.

The purple mangosteen belongs to the same genus as the other, less widely known, mangosteens, such as the button mangosteen (G. prainiana) or the charichuelo (G. madruno).

Maturation of the exocarp and edible aril

The juvenile mangosteen fruit, which does not require fertilisation to form (see agamospermy), first appears as pale green or almost white in the shade of the canopy. As the fruit enlarges over the next two to three months, the exocarp colour deepens to darker green. During this period, the fruit increases in size until its exocarp is 6–8 centimetres in outside diameter, remaining hard until a final, abrupt ripening stage.

The subsurface chemistry of the mangosteen exocarp comprises an array of polyphenols including xanthones and tannins that assure astringency which discourages infestation by insects, fungi, plant viruses, bacteria and animal predation while the fruit is immature. Colour changes and softening of the exocarp are natural processes of ripening that indicates the fruit can be eaten and the seeds have finished developing.[2]

Mangosteen produces a recalcitrant seed and must be kept moist to remain viable until germination. Mangosteen seeds are nucellar in origin and not the result of fertilisation; they germinate as soon as they are removed from the fruit and die quickly if allowed to dry.[3]
Only the white flesh of the purple mangosteen is edible

Once the developing mangosteen fruit has stopped expanding, chlorophyll synthesis slows as the next colour phase begins. Initially streaked with red, the exocarp pigmentation transitions from green to red to dark purple, indicating a final ripening stage. This entire process takes place over a period of ten days as the edible quality of the fruit peaks.

Over the days following the removal from the tree, the exocarp hardens to an extent depending upon postharvest handling and ambient storage conditions, especially relative humidity levels. If the ambient humidity is high, exocarp hardening may take a week or longer when the aril quality is peaking and excellent for consumption. However, after several additional days of storage, especially if unrefrigerated, the arils inside the fruit might spoil without any obvious external indications. Using the hardness of the rind as an indicator of freshness for the first two weeks following harvest is therefore unreliable because the rind does not accurately reveal the interior condition of the arils. If the exocarp is soft and yielding as it is when ripe and fresh from the tree, the fruit is usually good.

The edible endocarp of the mangosteen is botanically defined as an aril with the same shape and size as a tangerine 4–6 centimetres in diameter, but is white. The circle of wedge-shaped arils contains 4–8 segments, the larger ones harbouring apomictic seeds that are unpalatable unless roasted.

Often described as a subtle delicacy, the arils bear an exceptionally mild aroma, quantitatively having about 1/400th of the chemical constituents of fragrant fruits, explaining its relative mildness.The main volatile components having caramel, grass and butter notes as part of the mangosteen fragrance are hexyl acetate, hexenol and α-copaene.

On the bottom of the exocarp, raised ridges (remnants of the stigma), arranged like spokes of a wheel, correspond to the number of aril sections.Mangosteens reach fruit-bearing in as little as 5–6 years, but more typically require 8–10 years.

Nutrient and phytochemical content

The aril is the part of the fruit which contains the flavour; when analysed specifically for its nutrient content, however, the mangosteen aril only meets the first criterion above, as its overall nutrient profile is absent of important content.

Some mangosteen juice products contain whole fruit purée or polyphenols extracted from the inedible exocarp (rind) as a formulation strategy to add phytochemical value. The resulting juice has purple colour and astringency derived from exocarp pigments, including xanthonoids under study for potential disease amelioration effects.The potential health benefits of xanthones were debated in a four-part series in 2009.

Other authors proposed alpha-mangostin, a xanthone, could stimulate apoptosis in leukæmia cells in vitro.

Furthermore, a possible adverse effect may occur from chronic consumption of mangosteen juice containing xanthones. A 2008 medical case report described a patient with severe acidosis, possibly attributable to a year of daily use (to lose weight, dose not described) of mangosteen juice infused with tannins.

Prunus virginiana

The Choke Cherry (Prunus virginiana) is a species of bird cherry (Prunus subgenus Padus) native to North America, where it is found almost throughout the continent except for the deep south and the far north.
It is a suckering shrub or small tree growing to 5 m tall. The leaves are oval, 3–10 cm long, with a coarsely serrated margin. The flowers are produced in racemes of 15-30 in late spring (well after leaf emergence). The fruit are about 1 cm diameter, range in color from bright red to black, with a very astringent, sour taste. The very ripe berries are dark in color and less astringent than the red berries.

Etymology

The chokeberries, genus Aronia, are often mistakenly called chokecherries. This naming confusion is easy to understand considering there is a cultivar of the chokecherry Prunus virginiana 'Melanocarpa and a species of chokeberry named Aronia melanocarpa.In fact, the two plants are not close relatives within their subfamily Spiraeoideae.

Characteristics

Chokecherries are very high in antioxidant pigment compounds, like anthocyanins. They share this property with chokeberries, further contributing to confusion.

Varieties

Prunus virginiana is sometimes divided into two varieties, P. virginiana var. virginiana (the eastern chokecherry), and P. virginiana var. demissa (the western chokecherry)

The wild Chokecherry is often considered a pest, as it is a host for the tent caterpillar, a threat to other fruit plants. However, there are more appreciated cultivars of the chokecherry, such as 'Goertz', which has a non-astringent, and therefore palatable, fruit. Research is being done at the University of Saskatchewan to find and create new cultivars to increase production and processing

leaf of Saskatchewan plant.

Chokecherry is closely related to the Black Cherry (Prunus serotina) of eastern North America; it is most readily distinguished from that by its smaller size (Black Cherry can reach 30 m tall), smaller leaves, and sometimes red ripe fruit. The Chokecherry leaf has a finely serrated margin and is dark green above with a paler underside, while the Black Cherry leaf has numerous blunt edges along its margin and is dark green and smooth.

The name chokecherry has also been used (as 'Amur Chokecherry') for the related Manchurian Cherry or Amur Cherry (Prunus maackii).

Human and Animal Consumption

Chokecherries were for many Native American tribes of the Northern Rockies, Northern Plains, and boreal forest region of Canada and the United States the most important fruit in their diets.The bark of chokecherry root was once made into an asperous textured concoction used to ward off or treat colds, fever and stomach maladies by native Americans The chokecherry fruit can be used to make a tasty jam, jelly, or syrup, but the bitter nature of the fruit means you need a lot of sugar to sweeten the preserves.

Chokecherry is toxic to horses, moose, cattle, goats, deer, and other animals with segmented stomachs (rumens), especially after the leaves have wilted (such as after a frost or after branches have been broken) because wilting releases cyanide and makes the plant sweet. About 5–10 kg of foliage can be fatal. Symptoms of a horse that has been poisoned include heavy breathing, agitation, and weakness. The leaves of the chokecherry serve as food for caterpillars of various Lepidoptera. See List of Lepidoptera which feed on Prunus.

In 2007, Governor John Hoeven signed a bill naming the chokecherry the official fruit of the state of North Dakota, in part because its remains have been found at more archeological sites in the Dakotas than anywhere else.

gooseberry

The gooseberry (pronounced /ˈɡʊzbəri/;[1] Ribes uva-crispa, syn. R. grossularia) is a species of Ribes, native to Europe, northwestern Africa and southwestern Asia. It is one of several similar species in the subgenus Grossularia; for the other related species (e.g., North American Gooseberry Ribes hirtellum), see the genus page Ribes.

Although usually placed as a subgenus within Ribes, a few taxonomists treat Grossularia as a separate genus, although hybrids between gooseberry and blackcurrant (e.g., the Jostaberry) are possible. The subgenus Grossularia differs somewhat from currants, chiefly in their spiny stems, and in that their flowers grow one to three together on short stems, not in racemes.

Gooseberry bushes produce an edible fruit and are grown on both a commercial and domestic basis.

Growth habit and physical characteristics

The gooseberry is a straggling bush growing to 1–3 metres (3–10 feet) tall, the branches being thickly set with sharp spines, standing out singly or in diverging tufts of two or three from the bases of the short spurs or lateral leaf shoots. The bell-shaped flowers are produced, singly or in pairs, from the groups of rounded, deeply-crenated 3 or 5 lobed leaves. The fruit of wild gooseberries is smaller than in the cultivated varieties, but is often of good flavour; it is generally hairy, but in one variety smooth, constituting the R. uva-crispa of writers; berries' colour is usually green, but there are red variants and occasionally deep purple berries occur.

In Britain, gooseberry bushes are often found in copses and hedgerows and about old ruins, but the gooseberry has been cultivated for so long that it is difficult to distinguish wild bushes from feral ones, or where the gooseberry fits into the native flora of the island. Common as it is now on some of the lower slopes of the Alps of Piedmont and Savoy, it is uncertain whether the Romans were acquainted with the gooseberry, though it may possibly be alluded to in a vague passage of Pliny the Elder's Natural History; the hot summers of Italy, in ancient times as at present, would be unfavourable to its cultivation. Although gooseberries are now abundant in Germany and France, it does not appear to have been much grown there in the Middle Ages, though the wild fruit was held in some esteem medicinally for the cooling properties of its acid juice in fevers; while the old English name, Fea-berry, still surviving in some provincial dialects, indicates that it was similarly valued in Britain, where it was planted in gardens at a comparatively early period.

William Turner describes the gooseberry in his Herball, written about the middle of the 16th century, and a few years later it is mentioned in one of Thomas Tusser's quaint rhymes as an ordinary object of garden culture. Improved varieties were probably first raised by the skilful gardeners of Holland, whose name for the fruit, Kruisbezie, may have been easily corrupted into the present English vernacular word. Towards the end of the 18th century the gooseberry became a favourite object of cottage-horticulture, especially in Lancashire, where the working cotton-spinners have raised numerous varieties from seed, their efforts having been chiefly directed to increasing the size of the fruit.

Climate

Of the many hundred varieties enumerated in recent horticultural works, few perhaps equal in flavour some of the older denizens of the fruit-garden, such as the old rough red and hairy amber. The climate of the British Isles seems peculiarly adapted to bring the gooseberry to perfection,[citation needed] and it may be grown successfully even in the most northern parts of Scotland where it is commonly known as a "grozet"; indeed, the flavour of the fruit is said to improve with increasing latitude. In Norway (where it's named "stikkelsbær" — or "prickly berry"), the bush flourishes in gardens on the west coast nearly up to the Arctic circle, and it is found wild as far north as 63°. The dry summers of the French and German plains are less suited to it, though it is grown in some hilly districts with tolerable success. The gooseberry in the south of England will grow well in cool situations, and may be sometimes seen in gardens near London flourishing under the partial shade of apple trees; but in the north it needs full exposure to the sun to bring the fruit to perfection. It will succeed in almost any soil, but prefers a rich loam or black alluvium, and, though naturally a plant of rather dry places, will do well in moist land, if drained.

It is also widely found in villages throughout the former Czechoslovakia

Cultivation

The easiest method of propagating gooseberries is by cuttings rather than raising from seed;cuttings planted in the autumn will take root quickly and can begin to bear fruit within a few years.

Vigorous pruning may be necessary; fruit is produced on lateral spurs and the previous year's shoots, so the 19th-century custom was to trim side branches in the winter, and perhaps trim leading shoots at that time or remove their tips in the summer.

Large berries can be produced by heavy composting, especially if the majority of the fruit is picked off while small to allow room for a few berries to continue to grow. Grafting of gooseberry vines onto ornamental golden currants (Ribes aurum) or other Ribes species can be helpful for this purpose. Some 19th- and early 20th-century cultivators produced single gooseberries near to two ounces in weight, but, as with many varieties of fruit, larger sizes of gooseberry proved to have weaker flavor.

Pests

Gooseberry bushes are vulnerable to magpie moth (Abraxas grossulariata) caterpillars. In cultivation, the best method for removing them is to remove the larvae by hand soon after they hatch; its eggs are laid on fallen gooseberry leaves.

Other potential threats are V-moth (Macaria wauaria) and Gooseberry sawfly (Nematus ribesii). Nematus reibesii grubs will bury themselves in the ground to pupate; on hatching into adult form, they lay their eggs, which soon hatch into larvae, on the underside of gooseberry leaves. 19th-century insecticides against these included tar water, weak solutions of carbolic acid, and powdered hellebore, which worked against magpie moths and V-moths as well as gooseberry sawflies. (Foxglove and tobacco infusions were also sometimes used.) Careful removal of fallen leaves and tilling of the ground around the plant will also destroy most eggs and chrysalises of these insects.

Potassium sulfide was known to be an effective treatment for blights and other parasitic growths, such as American gooseberry mildew.

Note that like most Ribes, the gooseberry is a potential host for white pine blister rust, which
can cause serious damage to white pines; thus, gooseberry cultivation is illegal in some areas of the U.S

Gooseberries are best known for their use in desserts such as pies, fools and crumbles. Gooseberries are commonly preserved by drying, storing in sugar syrup, or as jam or pickle. Gooseberries are used to flavoured drinks such as soda, water or even milk, and are used to make Fruit wine. In India some use gooseberry for acidity problem and stomach ache

Etymology

The "goose" in "gooseberry" has usually been seen as a corruption of either the Dutch word Kruisbezie or the allied German Krausbeere, or of the earlier forms of the French groseille. Alternatively the word has been connected to the Middle High German krus (curl, crisped), in Latin as grossularia. However, the Oxford English Dictionary takes the obvious derivation from goose and berry as probable because "the grounds on which plants and fruits have received names associating them with animals are so often inexplicable that the inappropriateness in the meaning does not necessarily give good grounds for believing that the word is an etymological corruption.

Lime

is a term referring to a number of different fruits, both species and hybrids, citruses, which are typically round, green to yellow in color, 3–6 cm in diameter, and containing sour and acidic pulp; they are a good source of vitamin C. Limes are often used to accent the flavours of foods and beverages. They are usually smaller than lemons. Limes are grown all year round and are usually sweeter than lemons.


In cooking, lime is valued both for the acidity of its juice and the floral aroma of its zest. It is a very common ingredient in authentic Mexican, Southwestern United States, Vietnamese and Thai dishes. It is also used for its pickling properties in ceviche. The use of dried limes (called black lime or loomi) as a flavouring is typical of Persian cuisine and Iraqi cuisine, as well as in Gulf-style baharat (a spice mixture that is also called kabsa or kebsa). Lime is an essential ingredient of any cuisine from India and many varieties of pickles are made e.g. Sweetened lime pickle, salted pickle, Lemon Chutney.

Lime leaves are also a herb in South, East, and Southeast Asia.

Lime is frequently used to add flavour to cold drinks, including water, gin and tonic and other cocktails.

Other uses

In order to prevent scurvy during the 19th century, British sailors were issued a daily allowance of citrus such as lemon, and later switched to lime, which was not as effective at preventing scurvy but led over time to the nickname "limey" for all Britons. It was later discovered that the greater effectiveness of lemons derived from the 4-fold higher quantities of Vitamin C lemon juice contains compared to the West Indian limes used by the British.

Lime extracts and essential oils are frequently used in perfumes, cleaning products, and aromatherapy.

In India, the lime is used in Tantra for removing evil spirits. It is also combined with Indian chilis to make a protective charm to repel the evil eye.[4] Furthermore, it was believed that hanging limes over sick people cured them of the illness by repelling evil spirits lurking inside the body.

India, with about 16% of the world's overall lemon and lime output, tops the production list, followed by Mexico (~14.5%), Argentina (~10%), Brazil (~8%) and Spain (~7%)