My partner and I just celebrated our 20th anniversary.  When we first started dating I remember the Cranberries’ song Linger was all over the radio and it sort of became our song.  Then I started listening to the lyrics and decided that it wasn’t a love song after all and that skinny lollipop-headed Dolores O’Riordan was singing about a nefarious individual who’s attitude was, “tearing (her) apart, it’s ruining everything.”  He probably stole her sandwich and she decided to never eat again.

Twenty years later I still like the band but no longer eat cranberry sauce shaped like the can it came from. Slimy and jiggly it was, its tart gelatinous consistency was never questioned by anyone in my family. In those days most things came from a can:  spinach, asparagus tips, corn, peas, carrots. Why should cranberries be any different? If Popeye could grow big muscles from eating slimy canned spinach, then how bad could canned cranberry sauce be?  We would slice the tube-shaped consumable and put the medallion on our plate.  Soon turkey would be off the menu at our house so cranberry sauce quickly followed.

Lately I’ve been eating cranberries again.  The berries are a little too tart for me but I add the frozen berries to my morning smoothies.  I love the way they sound like marbles when you grab them by the handful and drop them into the blender. Fresh cranberries are filled with Vitamins E, C & K, manganese, copper, fibre as well as a host of phytonutrients that have anti-oxident and anti-inflammatory properties. They’re a good prevention against UTIs  and are good for your heart.  They may even prevent kidney stones from forming.

Gotta love ’em.

Cranberry smoothie:

1 cup Natura soy milk

1 banana

1/2 cup pineapple

1/2 cup cranberries

1/4 cup blueberries

1 tablespoon Bob’s Red Mill whole ground flaxseed meal

1 tablespoon organic hemp protein powder