Blueberries are a super fruit—but they become extra-super when you exercise.
Eating a cup of blueberries every day—or 25g of the freeze-dried variety—helps your body burn fat faster when you exercise.
The berries are high in anthocyanins, which reduce oxidative stress—when free radicals and antioxidants get out of kilter—and encourage fat burning. Anthocyanins are antioxidants that give the fruit its blueish colour.
Researchers from the California Polytechnic State University gave 11 male cyclists 25g of freeze-dried wild blueberries, which contain around 375 g of anthocyanins, for two weeks before monitoring their rates of fat oxidation, or ‘fat burning’, while they did moderate cycling exercises for 40 minutes. They had also carried out the same exercises after avoiding all anthocyanin-rich foods for two weeks.
After eating the berries, the cyclists’ fat-burning levels increased by 31 percent—but peaked at 43 percent after 30 minutes of cycling.
