Goji Berries 4 U

Recent years goji berries have become a very popular healthy food in USA, Canada, Japen, and Europe. Nowadays even supermarkets such as Tesco in the UK have put goji berries on their shelf. More and more people have enjoyed these nice berries. In addition, there are also goji products such as goji juice, goji capsules, and even goji powder etc. Goji Berries are also known as Wolfberry. Some people even mis-spell it as gogi berry. It is a dark-red coloured sweet-taste dried fruit, similar to raisin.

Origin of goji berries

Goji berries are from north-western part of China, and have been grown and consumed in China for many thousand years. For some strange reasons goji berries are mostly marketed in Europe and USA as Tibetan Goji Berries or Himalayan Goji Berries. If you asked Chinese people for Tibetan Goji Berries, however, they will be surprised, because they only know goji berries are not from Tibet or Himalaya, instead, they come from northwest part of China. It doesn’t mean that there is no goji berries in Tibet, but only means that there is no commercial farming of goji berries in Tibet. The possible reason for marketing it as Tibetan Goji Berries is that fruit coming from mountain area usually has more polysaccharides content. Accordig to Wikipedia, even the first nutrionist who introduced goji berries into USA admits that his goji berries actually don't come from Tibet or Himalyan region.

Goji berries and Traditional Chinese Medicine

Firstly Traditional Chinese doctirs thinks it works on kidney and liver, so they are usually used to treat liver and/or kidney disease. The reason that it is also used to treat eye diseases is because Chinese doctors believes eyesight is governed by liver and kidney. What is more, since Chinese Medicine also believes that sexual capability is dictated by the strength of kidney, it is also widely used by Chinese doctors to treat sexual impotency etc. But the Chinese consumption of this fruit is more than that, they also eat goji berries in day-to-day lives, for example, to prepare herbal tea along with Chrysanthemum, to add it to soup etc.

Content of goji berries

As you might be aware, traditional Chinese medical theory is not based on molecular biology, but based on Yin, Yang, and Qi. When Western people discovered this fruit, they analysed its biological content, and explained why it is beneficial from the perspective of western medicine. It has been found that goji berries contain many nutrients as below:

6 essential vitamins
11 essential elements
22 trace dietary minerals
18 amino acids
8 polysaccharides
6 monosaccharides
5 unsaturated fatty acids (essential fatty acids, linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid beta-sitosterol and other phytosterols)
5 carotenoids, including beta-carotene and zeaxanthin, lutein, lycopene and beta-cryptoxanthin, a xanthophyll
many phenolic pigments

It has also been found that goji berries contain Calcium (112mg/100g), Potassium (1.13 mg/100g), Iron (9mg/100g), Zinc (2mg/100g), Selenium (50 micrograms/100g), Riboflavin (1.3mg/100g), Vitamin C (148mg/100g).

Goji Berries also contain many phytochemicals,

Beta carotene: 7 mg per 100 grams dried fruit.
Zeaxanthin: Up to 200 mg per in 100 grams dried Goji Berries . Up to 77% of total carotenoids present in wolfberry exist as zeaxanthin.
Polysaccharides: up to 31% of pulp weight.

Organic vs Conventional Goji Berries

The commercial growth of organic goji berries is not an easy process. It requires at least 3 years to get the land ready, along with other measures. So far the annual yield of organic goji berries in China is still not significant by comparison with normal goji berries, simply because there are not many lands ready for it. Therefore there is a big difference in terms of pricing. So when you see somebody sell organic goji berries in eBay at dirty cheap price, would you trust them?

Goji Products

In the market there are also some processed goji products, however, natural raw goji berries contain more nutrients than the processed goji products, for example, goji berry extract, goji juice, goji tablets, etc. This is because processed goji berries lose a large amount of their nutritional properties due to the oxidation process during processing.

Goji Berries 4 U will supply finest top quality goji berries to customers in the UK and Europe.

Coming soon...