Healthy Food Spotlight: Raisins, A Healthy New Year's Food!

Those wrinkly dancing dudes from California are recurring characters when my childhood memory reel spins. In my (ahem) ripened age, however, I haven't been hearing it through the grapevine so often; I mean, I haven't bought raisins in more than a year. It got me wondering, is there something I'm missing by not eating those little sun-soaked nuggets?

Apparently, raisins have enjoyed a long history as sugary little mouth pleasers, likely because they can boast so many nutritional benefits. Raisins are great for gaining weight. Their densely packed fructose and glucose well serve the underweight and those looking for a quick energy fix before heading to the gym to bulk up. Perhaps more interesting for long-term health, raisins have also been cited to have oft missing elements, such as boron and copper. Boron aids the absorption of calcium, and is really only needed in small amounts. Copper, long-held by the Ayurvedic tradition to balance vata, has been touted as an anti-inflammatory beneficial for arthritis sufferers. It's also been cited as helpful for maximum utilization of sugar and iron -- good thing raisins are good sources of both of these as well. Copper may also reduce bad cholesterol.

Could you get the same health benefit from a grape? Well, obviously, all dried fruits have a higher concentration of sugars, so that bulking benefit wouldn't be prevalent. Ounce for ounce, raisins have three times more antioxidants than grapes!

Couple tips:

1. Make sure to buy organic if you need these shriveled bits to be sulfite-free
2. Follow Spanish and Portuguese traditions as the calendar flips to 2012 by eating 12 raisins -- that's a lucky one for each month of the year

So pop 'em on some salad, in your couscous, or on your favorite breakfast cereal to get your taste buds dancing and that memory reel spinning.