Tart Cherry Juice Powder

What is Tart Cherry Juice Powder?

Tart cherry juice powder is made from IQF (Individually Quick Frozen) cherries. This means the entire cherry is used to make the tart cherry juice powder. This includes the skin, the pulp and the juice of the fruit.

The benefit to using the entire fruit is with each serving you’re getting the whole fruit. It would be like eating fresh wholes cherries, but without the stem and the pit.

The difference being is each serving is a concentrated serving of the entire fruit. You would have to eat pounds of the fresh cherries to get just the benefits of s single serving of the cherry juice powder.

What Is Cherry Juice Powder Used For?

Studies show red or sour cherries are packed with anthocyanins, antioxidants and other naturally occurring compounds. The presence of these and other compounds may help maintain healthy joint function*, soothe achy muscles* and help maintain healthy sleep patterns.*

All of this is great news. With the hectic days, many people may not be enjoying pain-free days or restful nights. Enjoying cherry powder may be an excellent way to the natural benefits of this ruby red fruit year-round.

Learn more about cherry juice powder

When are Cherries Harvested?

The reason you may be able to get fresh cherries year-round is they are only harvested during the summer months. Our region of Northern Michigan, also known as the Traverse Bay Farms region, grows over 65% of all Montmorency cherries in the United States. This area has earned the nickname of “Cherry Capital of the World”.

It is during the six-week period in the warm summer months of mid-July until mid-August these red morsels are harvested. Once they are harvested, they then sent to the processing plant.

It is during this time the cherries are placed in cooling bins to washed and cooled. This helps to prevent the fruit from splitting.

They are then sent to the sorting areas. The cherries are first separated from good quality and poor quality. The good cherries are then sent to be sorted based upon size of the fruit.

After this step, the crop then begins it journey to be produced into several different types of the products or sold in local famer markets and grocery stores as fresh fruit.

The cherry is a very perishable fruit. They are only available as fresh fruit for only a few short weeks during the summer months. The remainder of the cherries are then processed into IQF (individually quick frozen) fruit, canned cherries, cherry juice concentrate, dried fruit, tart cherry juice powder and more.

How Many Cherries in a Tree?

With cherries only being available to purchase fresh for just a few weeks, the next question is “How many cherries are in a cherry tree?”

This is a good question, since cherries are a natural product and mass amounts of the fruit can’t be grown in a laboratory.

The average cherry tree has about 7,000 cherries per tree. This is enough to produce approximately 250 cherry pies. In addition, it takes about 4-5 years after a tart cherry is planted to begin producing the cherries.

To help produce the annual tasty harvest, cherry farmers place beehives through the orchards. The bees naturally pollinate the blossoms.

How are Cherries Harvested?

Since there are so many cherries on a single tree, it doesn’t make sense to hand-pick the fruit. The best way to harvest the cherries is to shake the trees. A machine we call the “shaker” is used to harvest the cherries. Once the cherries are “shaken” from the trees, they are dropped into a conveyor belt. The belt move them into bins of cool water.

Check out this video of cherries being harvested.

The sweet or dark cherries are usually enjoyed for personal consumption and eating fresh. The sweet cherries are usually the variety of cherry used for “U Pick Cherries” or “U Pick Farms”. So when you see the U-Pick signs on cherry orchards, they are usually for the sweet cherries.

The difference between each is the dark cherries contain more sugar and usually sweeter than the tart or red cherries. The tart or sour cherries are usually used in recipes, cherry juice, fruit powder and tart cherry capsules.

How Many Cherries to Eat?

As with any food, you can always eat too much. Once you enjoy your fill, you should stop consumption of any type of food including cherries. Excess cherries may lead to a swollen stomach.

In addition, cherries are a natural source of fructose. This is naturally occurring sugar. Like beans, if a person consumes to many cherries, this could cause gas.

Can you 50 cherries? You can eat 100 cherries? The answer is probably, but like overeating any food, including cherries, why would you want to.

Simply enjoy a few cherries per sitting. Of course, never eat the pit or the stem of the cherry. The pit of the cherry is poisonous and who would want to eat the eat anyway.

If you’re looking the enjoy the great taste of cherries, enjoy a few per sitting. If you’re looking to enjoy the health benefits of cherries consider drinking the tart cherry juice, taking the cherry juice powder or the tart cherry capsules.

Also, check out the benefits of drinking cherry juice, too.