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Cranberries and their uses
Cranberries are major crops in Wisconsin, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Commercial cranberry fields today are diked so they may be flooded. When the berries are ripe, they float, making harvesting a matter of flooding the field, shaking the bushes a bit, and skimming off the berries into waiting trucks. Various mechanisms have been used through the years to "shake" the bushes, including a 2005 innovation that reduces bush damage and increases yield.
Usually cranberries as fruit are served as a compote or jelly, often known generically as cranberry sauce. Such preparations are traditionally served with roast turkey meat. The berry is also used in baking (muffins and cakes) but, unlike many other berries, is normally considered too sharp to be eaten unaccompanied.
Cranberry juice, usually sweetened (to make "cranberry juice cocktail") or blended with other fruit juices, is a major use of cranberries.
There is some use of cranberry juice by people with spinal paralysis; regular consumption of the juice is supposed to reduce the rate of urinary tract infections. While much of the evidence is equivocal, a number of double-blind clinical trials have been carried out that suggest there actually is an effect: a component of the juice appears to competitively inhibit bacterial attachment to the bladder and urethra.
An Autumn 2004 caution from the Committee on Safety of Medicines (the UK agency dealing with drug safety) advises patients on warfarin to stay off cranberry juice after adverse effects were reported.
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01-24-2006, 10:24 PM
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