Goji berries, also known as wolfberries, are without a doubt the one superfruit with the most evidence of their healthful properties. Chinese medicine, which dates back a good 5,000 years or so, has always included goji berries as one of it's most revered ingredients. In fact, if you were to walk up to a chinese doctor practicing today and tell him what ails you, there is literally a 50% chance that he'll prescribe goji berries in one form or another! |  |
Not just any old goji berries, though. Just like we have different kinds of apples at the supermarket, Chinese herbalists know of many kinds of goji and the ones most packed with antioxidants and other powerful benefits are the Lycium barbarum berries from the Ningxia province of China.
Since the northern province of Ningxia lies nowhere near the Himalayas nor Tibet, there has obviously been some kind of marketing scam in recent history that has propelled countless "Himalayan" and "Tibetan" goji juices & products. The fact is that Lycium barbarum cannot grow at high altitudes, making those terms dead giveaways of bad products.
The most impressive proof of Ningxia wolfberries' power is in the people of Ningxia. Nowhere else on Earth is it common to live to the age of 120 years old... And yet still be present enough of mind and body to do mental and physical work until the day that they die!
In an ironic twist, the oldest documented superfruit is the latest one to make it's way west. Only after an Olympic swimmer in China announced on television that her secret was 'lots of goji' did the word finally make it's way here. Talk about an ancient Chinese secret!
This Goji-Strawberry smoothie recipe looks so tasty it made me forget about Acai smoothies for a minute… Goji berries and strawberry together do taste pretty good and with the agave nectar she throws in the blender I bet this is one of the better tasting smoothie recipes you can find as well as being one [...]
If you want to try some goji products, this is a goji berry green tea with a proprietary blend of herbs. This Goji Berry Green Tea from Yogi Tea is a daily energy tonic. It’s an all natural tea made from organic green tea leaf, natural and organic flavors, organic green matcha tea leaf, and goji berries (lyceum barbarum). The taste is mild, only very slightly berry-like, tasting mostly of green tea, with a very pleasant aroma. Goji Berry Green Tea comes with an expiration date which is a plus point because then I know that it’s not full of preservatives and you can tell if it is fresh.
So you got your hands on some Goji berries, now what?
The following book does a great job of answering that question.
Despite all their clever marketing, Goji berries alone don’t taste that great… They can be pretty boring, in fact. What you need now is a recipe book to show you how to turn those boring-tasting [...]
Dr. Victor Marcial-Vega, a physician trained at John Hopkins University, made this video presentation in 2006 using high-resolution video of live blood samples taken from an anemic patient before and during goji treatments.
It’s nothing short of amazing… In fact it’s hard to believe that such compelling evidence of superfruit benefits really exists, yet all [...]
Goji berry is sometimes called Chinese wolfberry. This berry has been around for a long time and people in China have been taking advantage of its health properties for centuries. This book, Wolfberry: Nature’s Bounty of Nutrition and Health, objectively considers nutritional evidence that the Chinese wolfberry, Lycium barbarum L., is the world’s most nutrient-rich [...]
