Dried Apples vs. Cholesterol

Dried fruit is convenient, packed with nutrition; but which ones are the best? Here’s raisins. Now this is per serving, per ounce, not per cup like with the berries. Here’s prunes, dried mangoes (which I love, so I was happy about that), dried apricots, dried cherries (through the roof), with goji berries at the top.

They also analyzed dried apple. Where do you think they fit? I would have guessed towards the bottom—maybe even lower than raisins—but, I would have been wrong. Dried apple rings landed way up here, making them one of the healthiest dried fruits on the planet.

In fact, a preliminary report was released at a recent nutrition conference, suggesting that daily dried apple consumption promotes cardiovascular health in postmenopausal women. Split the women into two groups, and those forced to eat 3 ounces of dried apple rings a day for a year saw their bad cholesterol drop 23%—that’s huge! LDL dropped 23%! The level of inflammation in their bodies plummeted.

And you’d think if you made people add 240 calories worth of snacks to their daily diet, they’d gain weight, but no—they actually lost a couple pounds as a bonus.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by MaryAnn Allison.

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Images thanks to Scott Ehardt, Asabengurtza and Yosri via wikimedia; storebukkebruse via flickr and Pvt pauline via instagram. Images have been modified.