Aronia, the antioxidant champion, is becoming a popular superfood

The aronia fruit is becoming more popular among consumers looking for a healthy diet, says Cengiz Bostanci, agricultural engineer for the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Bartin: “The aronia, which is among the medicinal aromatic plants that adapt to Türkiye’s fertile soils and climatic conditions and is also known as super fruit, has high nutritional value and has very high antioxidant properties. Harvested aronia fruits are processed in various ways and consumed fresh by consumers who care about their health, as well as used in jam, marmalade and fruit juice. Aronia is an antioxidant fruit, with high nutritional value, and is important both in terms of health and economically. Aronia is used both in the food industry and in the pharmaceutical sector, and is also used as fresh and dried fruit.”

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The fruit has come a long way, as it was only a few years ago that official varieties of aronia berries were registered, FreshPlaza notes. Bostanci explains. “Research into this fruit was started at the Yalova Atatürk Horticultural Research Institute in 2012. The ‘Viking’ variety of the fruit was registered in 2017 and the ‘Nero’ variety was registered in 2018. Aronia fruit is produced in many cities in Türkiye, there are also cities such as Bartın, which even has an organic certified production. And this year’s harvest of the aronia has just begun.”

According to Bostanci, the aronia has the most antioxidants compared to other fruits, as shown in the graph: “Aronia is the fruit with the highest measured value of antioxidants. The amount of antioxidants in foods is measured and defined by certain techniques. The most common is to measure the oxygen radical absorption capacity of that food, that is, the ORAC value. According to the USDA, the daily amount of antioxidants a person should take should be 3000 – 5000 ORAC units.”