Goji Fruit Overview – Helping You Get a Thorough Understanding
Goji Fruit – Separating Facts from Myths
The goji fruit is a small, red berry that has a mildly sweet taste. In its commercial form, it is cultivated on large farms in Western and central China, the country where it has been in use for several millennia both as a natural remedy and a supplement to one’s diet.
In the West, the official name of the fruit is wolfberry, but it is not commonly used. Due to the marketing efforts of makers of goji juice, it is most commonly referred to as Himalayan goji fruit or Tibetan goji fruit, both of which are technically wrong. The berry may have very well originated from parts of the world north of China, but these regions are much too cold to grow the goji fruit, not to mention that the soil is not that great either.
The plant itself is a woody plant that can grow to three to nine feet in height (1-3 meters), and in some places they will be shorter. The goji fruit is red in color with an orange hue to it and it is elliptic in shape and less than an inch long. The number of seeds it contains varies with size and it may contain between ten and thirty seeds.
The goji fruit has been used for centuries in folk medicine in China and other parts of the East. A couple of the other countries that use this berry extensively are Korea and Japan.
The health benefits associated with this herb are numerous and span from increasing the physiology’s ability to fight off diseases (immune system) and perhaps having an effect on diabetes and even cancer if you believe some of the reports. We have a list of uses the Chinese have found for the goji fruit and some of the objections modern medical science havs with these claims here. We have unsolicited testimonials of the experiences of people who have taken goji juice for an extended period of time here.
Goji berries said to contain 53 essential nutrients. We have posted what we believe a complete list of these amino acids, vitamins and trace elements in goji here.
One thing that everybody seems to agree on that the fruit contains a large amount of antioxidants like most berries. Antioxidants have been known to combat aging by limiting the amount of free radicals in the physiology that put undue stress on the immune system by oxidizing it.
If you have information regarding this herb, we encourage you to join the discussion by leaving a comment at the bottom of the page.