The Truth About Dried Cranberries OUCH!

http://www.snack-girl.com/

This shocking post will reveal a little known fact about dried cranberries. Someone has to reveal the truth!

Cranberries are picked by fairies who live in teeny weeny mobile homes.

:)

Actually, the truth is not as interesting as the above fib. Dried cranberries, also know as “Craisins”, are not the same as raisins. Sure, Ocean Spray would like you to believe that they are the same, but there is one big difference.

Dried cranberries are made with added sugar, while raisins are just dried grapes with no sugar added. Why should this matter to you? I guess I think that most of us put dried cranberries and dried grapes in the same category because they sit next to each other in the store and because of the name “Craisins”.

Side note from heartweed" sugar is a grass..wheat is a grass! 

I learned all about “Craisins” at a California Raisin Advisory board breakfast where they fed me (you guessed it) raisin bread. Yum! At any rate, they are the ones who came up with that cute Marvin Gaye singing raisin.

They are a bit miffed at the cranberry people because of the insinuation that dried cranberries are like raisins and I think they have a point. Here are a two big differences between the two:

• Raisins have 6% of your daily value of iron per serving
• Raisins have 310 mg of potassium (9% of your daily value) per serving
• Raisins have 1 gram of protein and 2% of your daily value of calcium per serving

How much iron, potassium, protein, and calcium do dried cranberries have? Ahem, ZERO.

Here are the nutrition facts for one serving of dried cranberries:

130 calories, 0 g fat, 33 g carbohydrates, 26 g sugar, 0 g protein, 3 g fiber, 0 mg sodium

There are no other significant sources of macronutrients on the package. You may be getting some micronutrients, if they survived the dehydrating process. The rest is just fiber and sugar (which they added).

Raisins are more nutritious and fundamentally a different product (nothing added!) than dried cranberries.

I'm not saying you should stop eating dried cranberries. I love to use them as a flavoring agent for salads or cookies, but be aware that raisins are better for you.