Dried fruits like apricots and prunes have provided a mixture of sweetness and chewy texture in a healthier way. You can eat this as a healthy alternative to commercial sweets, or you can mix it with your desserts and breakfast. These dried fruits provide beneficial effects to your body, including nutrients like fiber, antioxidant carotenoids, and potassium.
Despite their apparent difference in appearance, these two fruits belong to the rose family. They are considered botanically related to peaches, nectarines, almonds, and other drupe fruits. Drying fruits may reduce heat-sensitive vitamins like vitamin C, but it can produce even more concentrated fruit. This gives dried apricots and prunes higher levels of nutrients compared to its new variants.
Are Apricots the Same as Prunes?
Apricots and prunes belong to the same botanical family, but it doesn’t mean that these two fruits are the same. Apricots and prunes have vast differences in terms of appearance, flavor, texture, and nutritional content. Prunes are created by drying specific variants of plums.
This plum has a similar roundness of cherry but with a skin similar to the bloody red hue of an apple.
Prunes can also appear heart-shaped or oval-shaped. This fruit also has a larger size than other plums, producing a higher juice content. This is why prunes can be created in the form of juice, jams, and dried fruit. Prunes can look like an oversized raisin, with its size somewhat similar to dates. However, prunes have more wrinkled skin than dates and lean toward a tartier taste than dates on the sweeter side of things.
Are Apricots High in Sugar?
Prunus armeniaca is a type of stone fruit that is widely enjoyed throughout the world. These fruits are yellow and round, and they do resemble peaches, but they are generally on the tarter side, flavor-wise, like purple plums. Nutrition-wise, apricots are commendable on the dinner table, and they can be consumed daily for their nutritional benefits. As for the natural sugar content of apricots, they are not that high in sugar, and they can be consumed every day.
Eating two fresh apricots only provides eight grams of sugar and just 34 calories of energy. As you can see, apricots are fruits that you can consume when you need to regulate the both sugar intake and caloric intake highly. And the fiber that comes naturally with these fruits will always help regulate the sugar spike after consuming any simple sugar, which natural fruit sugars are.
The WHO has long indicated that naturally occurring sugars in fruits are not counted against the free sugar consumption of a person, so it would make a lot of sense to eat more fruits than other sweets.
What Are the Benefits of Eating Prunes or Apricots?
Prunes and apricots are from different species, and they provide similar benefits.
- Prunes and apricots are low in calories, and they may be added to a diet to lower blood sugar and control diabetes. Some chronic conditions need some dietary components and changes, and fruits often provide that dietary boost because they are low-calorie and provide a sensible amount of dietary fiber in every serving.
This is where many adults fail – in obtaining the right amount of fiber daily. Fiber helps not just with controlling blood sugar levels but also with digestion in general. Having more fiber also helps protect the heart, as it slows down or blocks the absorption of fats and LDL (low-density lipoproteins). - Prunes and apricots are rich in antioxidants, as well as essential nutrients such as vitamin E, C, and A. These nutrients are all critical for the maintenance of a healthy body, and they may also help with preventing certain illnesses, including severe and chronic metabolic disorders such as various heart problems and type 2 diabetes.
The flavonoid content of these fruits also has anti-aging properties. You will get specific flavonoids such as quercetin, catechins, and chlorogenic acids when you consume these fruits.
The antioxidants found in these fruits have been shown to reduce inflammatory markers in the body as well. What this means is that, on the whole, fruits like apricots that contain the specific types of antioxidants listed above can have a beneficial effect on the body because they reduce tissue inflammation. Inflammatory markers were reduced to 73% in one study, which is nothing short of amazing. - Are you suffering from chronic constipation? Both prunes and apricots are known for containing naturally high amounts of fiber. If you need relief from chronic constipation and over-the-counter remedies don’t seem to be working, then you may want to head over to more natural remedies. Doctors have long known that to manage constipation well, you need a better dietary component. This means you have to make certain changes to your diet to make the symptoms of constipation go away.
In this regard, you need to establish a baseline for your diet. The ideal amount of dietary fiber per day that you should be consuming is about 28 grams. There is nothing wrong with going over this quantity, but you may suffer from constipation over time if you don’t get too much fiber.
Why is fiber so important for health? Soluble fiber, specifically, is responsible for regulating stool movement and for keeping the colon healthy. Essentially, soluble fiber draws in more water from the surroundings, making the stool softer and more manageable. The stool transit time is sped up in the process, and you won’t have to wait long for the seat to move. - These fruits are also naturally high in potassium, a critical nutrient for muscular contractions, blood pressure management, heart rhythm, and digestion. Potassium is so important that if you ended up with the condition that causes the body to release or waste potassium, you would be in danger.
