Cranberries are the fruit of the North American cranberry shrub. This fruit offers a low-fat, low-sodium and low-cholesterol source of dietary phytonutrients that are essential to a healthy diet and may help protect you from infections and diseases. You can include fresh cranberries in your diet to experience these health benefits. Other forms of cranberry foods include cranberry juice, cranberry sauce and dried cranberries.
Calories and Energy Density
A diet that emphasizes low-energy density foods can help you feel fuller by consuming fewer calories. Foods with high-energy density pack higher amounts of calories in smaller amounts of food. High-energy density foods include dessert, candy and processed foods. For example, a 1/2 cup serving of ice cream may contain between 144 and 266 calories. Foods with low-energy density contain fewer calories in larger portions of food. Low-energy density foods include vegetables and fruits such as cranberries. A 1/2 cup serving of fresh cranberries contains approximately 23 calories.
Health Benefits
Your diet may benefit from cranberries by preventing urinary tract infections, because chemicals in cranberries may prevent bacteria from attaching to cells that line the urinary tract. According to the National Institutes of Health, cranberry juice can help prevent repeated urinary tract infections in hospitalized patients, older and pregnant women. Cranberry juice may benefit people that suffer from type 2 diabetes, but results are inconclusive. According to the National Institutes of Health, cranberry supplements do not seem to lower blood sugar.
Nutrients
Cranberries provide your diet with a rich source of vitamin C and dietary fiber. Fiber adds bulk to your diet, helps you feel fuller and helps you control your weight. Fiber promotes healthy digestion and helps prevent constipation. Vitamin C is an essential water-soluble vitamin. Your body needs a continuous supply of vitamin C in your diet. Structures and tissues throughout your body need vitamin C for normal growth and repair. Vitamin C helps your body form collagen for health skin, tendons, ligaments and blood vessels. Vitamin C also helps your body repair and maintain cartilage, bones and teeth. A cup of fresh cranberries provides 14 mg of vitamin C, which is nearly 16 and 19 percent of the Institute of Medicine's daily recommended intake of vitamin C for the average adult man and woman.
Cholesterol
Cranberries may help control your cholesterol levels. A study published in 2006 in the "British Journal of Nutrition" suggests that a daily dose of low-calorie cranberry juice cocktail can help increase HDL, or high-density lipoprotein, cholesterol levels. HDL cholesterol is "good" cholesterol, because it helps remove excess artery-blocking cholesterol from your blood. The results of the study indicate that consuming cranberry juice cocktail every day was associated with increasing HDL cholesterol levels in abdominally obese men.
Dietary Antioxidants
According to the Cranberry Institute, cranberries provide a rich source of dietary antioxidants. Plant nutrients known as phenolic acids and proanthocyanidins contribute to the antioxidant properties in cranberries. Cranberry juice contains more antioxidants than orange juice and more than twice the amount of antioxidants than apple juice. Antioxidants in your diet may help protect cells in your body from toxic molecules that can damage cells and may contribute to age-related degenerative diseases, heart disease and cancer.
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