benefit and harm to the body

Nec­tarine is a tasty, healthy, bare fruit obtained by selec­tion or muta­tion of peach­es. The plant is not a hybrid of peach and plum, as some ama­teur gar­den­ers claim. Cul­ti­va­tion of cul­ture is pos­si­ble on the ter­ri­to­ry of our coun­try.

Accord­ing to the bio­log­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics and chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion of the fruit, nec­tarine is very sim­i­lar to the com­mon peach. What are the ben­e­fits of nec­tarine? This pop­u­lar fruit is rich in vit­a­mins A, C, con­tains a large sup­ply of min­er­als, there­fore it has high culi­nary and dietary prop­er­ties, sat­u­rat­ing the human body with vital ele­ments. There are many vari­eties of nec­tarine. Each dif­fers in taste, fruit shape, skin col­or. Nec­tarine is eat­en fresh, a vari­ety of pre­serves, jams are pre­pared, added to pas­tries as a fill­ing, and even ice cream is made on its basis. In some vari­eties, seeds are used for food, which taste like almonds.

In this arti­cle:

What is a nectarine

There is an opin­ion that the nec­tarine peach is the result of cross­ing plums and com­mon peach­es. How­ev­er, this state­ment is erro­neous. Nec­tarine is the clos­est rel­a­tive of the peach, but the exact ori­gin of the cul­ture has not yet been clar­i­fied.

On the ter­ri­to­ry of our coun­try, the nec­tarine tree has tak­en root very well, and many have man­aged to fall in love with its tasty, juicy, sweet fruits. A real nec­tarine taste, size, col­or of the pulp is almost iden­ti­cal to a peach. The only dif­fer­ence is an absolute­ly smooth skin, while peach fruits are cov­ered with soft fluff. Even the trees of both cul­tures are out­ward­ly dif­fi­cult to dis­tin­guish.

Nec­tarine fruits are rich in vit­a­mins and vital ele­ments. There­fore, it is use­ful to use them not only for adults, but also for chil­dren, the elder­ly to strength­en immu­ni­ty. Fruits can be eat­en fresh, pre­pared on the basis of a vari­ety of desserts, fruit sal­ads, sweet sauces, for­ti­fied fresh­ly squeezed juices.

Nec­tarine, the ben­e­fi­cial prop­er­ties of which can­not be under­es­ti­mat­ed, can be grown on the ter­ri­to­ry of our coun­try. Land­ing in a warm area is car­ried out in ear­ly autumn. If you live in areas with a cool cli­mate, it is advis­able to plant a tree in the spring, before the start of sap flow. The flow­er­ing of the tree begins in ear­ly or mid-May, then leaves appear. In order for the cul­ture to devel­op prop­er­ly and give high yields, prop­er care is nec­es­sary. The tree feels com­fort­able in a well-lit area with loamy or sandy soil. Ear­ly vari­eties need to be watered 2–3 times dur­ing the sea­son, mid-ear­ly and late — 4–6 times. For 2 — 3 weeks before har­vest­ing, abun­dant water­ing is car­ried out — from 30 to 6 liters of water per 1 m² of the near-stem cir­cle. To strength­en the tree and high yields, fer­til­iz­ing with organ­ic and min­er­al fer­til­iz­ers is car­ried out.

Many ama­teur gar­den­ers are inter­est­ed in how to grow a nec­tarine from a seed. For repro­duc­tion, it is rec­om­mend­ed to choose strong, large, high-qual­i­ty bones. The action descrip­tion is as fol­lows:

• The bones select­ed for repro­duc­tion should be left in a dry room for 2–3 days. Next, soak them in water.
• The soil for plant­i­ng is bet­ter to buy ready-made in the store. It is desir­able to plant bones for the win­ter. It is impor­tant to reg­u­lar­ly moist­en the soil, the tem­per­a­ture in the room should be + 20 … 25 ° C.
• After 3 months, the first shoots should appear.
• Seedlings are plant­ed in open ground in May, when the warm weath­er is com­plete­ly sta­bi­lized.

Now you also know how easy it is to grow a nec­tarine from a stone, but it is worth not­ing that the fruits from such a plant will not meet the ref­er­ence qual­i­ty.

Origin story

There is an assump­tion that the plant appeared as a result of nat­ur­al changes in peach trees. Nat­ur­al muta­tions caused the nec­tarine buds to devel­op dif­fer­ent­ly due to adverse weath­er con­di­tions. As a result, fruits appeared that looked like a peach with one sin­gle dif­fer­ence — a bald peel.

East Asia is con­sid­ered the birth­place of cul­ture, from where plants began to spread through­out the world.

Nowa­days, large-fruit­ed vari­eties, which are dis­tin­guished by high trans­porta­bil­i­ty, are espe­cial­ly pop­u­lar, which the com­mon peach does not boast of. The new vari­eties have a fiery red or red-pur­ple skin col­or and are char­ac­ter­ized by high taste and tech­no­log­i­cal qual­i­ties.

Fruit comes to the shelves of stores main­ly from the Mediter­ranean coun­tries:

• Greece;
• Italy;
• Israel.

Also, the cul­ture is suc­cess­ful­ly grown in Bul­gar­ia, France, and the USA. Cal­i­for­nia is one of the largest sup­pli­ers of nec­tarines in the world mar­ket.

High-yield­ing vari­eties are suc­cess­ful­ly grown in the Cau­ca­sus, where the cli­mate is mild, ide­al for a heat-lov­ing crop. In Ukraine, the cul­ture has tak­en root in the south­ern regions with a mild cli­mate. The lack of vari­eties adapt­ed to more severe weath­er con­di­tions does not allow the plant to be cul­ti­vat­ed through­out the coun­try, so nec­tarine is grown main­ly in the fol­low­ing areas:

• Odessa;
• Kher­son;
• Niko­laevskaya;
• Zaporozhye.

Composition

What is use­ful about the nec­tarine fruit is that it con­tains a huge sup­ply of vit­a­mins and min­er­als that have a ben­e­fi­cial effect on the state of the whole organ­ism. The fruit is rich in nat­ur­al sug­ars, giv­ing it a pleas­ant sweet­ness. Of the fat-sol­u­ble vit­a­mins in fruits, there are:

• Vit­a­min A. A pow­er­ful antiox­i­dant involved in redox process­es.
• Beta carotene. Vit­a­min A provi­t­a­min. Takes part in regen­er­a­tive process­es at the cel­lu­lar lev­el, pre­vents the devel­op­ment of can­cer.
• Vit­a­min E. Pro­tects cell mem­branes, accel­er­ates the removal of harm­ful tox­ins from the body.
• Vit­a­min K. Helps to absorb cal­ci­um more effi­cient­ly, par­tic­i­pates in the process­es of hematopoiesis, ensures bone health.

Nec­tarine also con­tains water-sol­u­ble vit­a­mins:

• Vit­a­min C. Nat­ur­al antiox­i­dant, increas­es the pro­tec­tive func­tions of the body, is involved in the syn­the­sis of col­la­gen, improv­ing the con­di­tion of the skin, lig­a­ments, car­ti­lage, blood ves­sels.
• Vit­a­min B1. Reg­u­lates meta­bol­ic process­es, neu­tral­izes the tox­i­c­i­ty of waste prod­ucts, favor­ably affects the state of the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem.
• Vit­a­min B2. Helps to process and effec­tive­ly assim­i­late pro­teins, fats, car­bo­hy­drates, increas­ing ener­gy reserves.
• Vit­a­min B3. It has a vasodi­lat­ing effect, there­by low­er­ing blood pres­sure, improves micro­cir­cu­la­tion, is involved in the syn­the­sis of hor­mones, the pro­duc­tion of hemo­glo­bin, and pro­tein absorp­tion.
• Vit­a­min B4. Pre­vents dis­or­ders of the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem, pre­vents stone for­ma­tion in the gall­blad­der, restores liv­er cells, low­ers cho­les­terol lev­els.
• Vit­a­min B5. Par­tic­i­pates in the syn­the­sis of fat­ty acids, cho­les­terol, hemo­glo­bin. Affects the metab­o­lism of fats, pro­teins, car­bo­hy­drates.
• Vit­a­min B6. It has a ben­e­fi­cial effect on brain tis­sue, as it is a pow­er­ful cat­a­lyst for the exchange of amino acids and the syn­the­sis of CNS neu­ro­trans­mit­ters.
• Vit­a­min B9. Folic acid affects cell divi­sion, growth and prop­er devel­op­ment of all tis­sues. Improves the func­tion­ing of the immune sys­tem, strength­ens the car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tem, favor­ably affects the work of the hematopoi­et­ic sys­tem.

The impres­sive min­er­al com­po­si­tion allows the fruit to be used for ther­a­peu­tic and pro­phy­lac­tic pur­pos­es to pre­vent the devel­op­ment of many dis­eases asso­ci­at­ed with diges­tion, car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­or­ders, and malig­nant neo­plasms. Ripe fruits are rich in such min­er­als:

• Cal­ci­um. Par­tic­i­pates in the process­es of mus­cle con­trac­til­i­ty and excitabil­i­ty of nerve tis­sues, affects blood clot­ting, con­tribut­ing to the block­age of injured areas with blood clots, increas­es mem­brane per­me­abil­i­ty, and pre­vents the devel­op­ment of ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis.
• Iron. Respon­si­ble for deliv­er­ing oxy­gen to tis­sues and trans­port­ing car­bon diox­ide to the lungs. A suf­fi­cient amount of iron from food is an excel­lent pre­ven­tion of iron defi­cien­cy ane­mia, which adults and chil­dren often expe­ri­ence.
• Mag­ne­sium. Par­tic­i­pates in the trans­mis­sion of neu­ro­mus­cu­lar impuls­es, pre­vents the devel­op­ment of dis­eases of the car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tem, main­tains healthy teeth and bone tis­sue, and reg­u­lates cell divi­sion process­es.
• Phos­pho­rus. Strength­ens tooth enam­el, pre­vents the devel­op­ment of den­tal dis­eases, sup­ports metab­o­lism, nor­mal­izes metab­o­lism, favor­ably affects the func­tion­ing of the brain, kid­neys, liv­er, and heart mus­cle.
• Potas­si­um. Reg­u­lates acid-base and water-salt bal­ance, main­tains nor­mal blood pres­sure, par­tic­i­pates in pro­tein syn­the­sis and some spe­cif­ic enzymes.
• Sodi­um. Sup­ports acid-base and water-salt bal­ance, improves kid­ney func­tion, par­tic­i­pates in the trans­fer of blood sug­ar.
• Zinc. Par­tic­i­pates in pro­tein syn­the­sis, the pro­duc­tion of vital hor­mones that affect metab­o­lism. The ele­ment strength­ens bones and teeth, acti­vates the immune sys­tem, strength­ens the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem, reg­u­lates the seba­ceous glands, and has a ben­e­fi­cial effect on the con­di­tion of the skin.
• Cop­per. Par­tic­i­pates in meta­bol­ic process­es, neu­tral­izes and accel­er­ates the removal of free rad­i­cals, increas­es the body’s resis­tance to virus­es and infec­tions.
• Man­ganese. Reg­u­lates metab­o­lism, pre­vents the devel­op­ment of ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis, strength­ens bones.
• Sele­ni­um. A pow­er­ful antiox­i­dant that reduces the risk of devel­op­ing can­cer, pre­vents heart dis­ease, has a pos­i­tive effect on brain func­tion, and improves thy­roid func­tion.
• Flu­o­rine. It takes part in hematopoi­et­ic process­es, strength­ens the immune sys­tem, par­tic­i­pates in enzy­mat­ic and bio­chem­i­cal reac­tions, strength­ens tooth enam­el, pre­vent­ing the devel­op­ment of com­mon den­tal dis­eases.

Calorie content of nectarine

Nec­tarine, the ben­e­fits of which are very large, with a rich vit­a­min and min­er­al com­po­si­tion, has a rel­a­tive­ly low calo­rie con­tent — 45 — 50 kcal per 100 g. There­fore, fruits can be includ­ed in the diet for peo­ple who con­trol body weight. Ripe fruits will suc­cess­ful­ly replace a sweet dessert, sat­u­rate the body with vit­a­mins, micro and macro ele­ments, help to effec­tive­ly reduce weight and feel full even with a strict diet menu.

Varieties of nectarine

There are many vari­eties of nec­tarine that dif­fer in taste char­ac­ter­is­tics, appear­ance, ripen­ing time, etc. Nec­tarine, the vari­eties of which are described below, is suc­cess­ful­ly cul­ti­vat­ed in our coun­try:

• Stark Red Gold. Nec­tarine “Red Gold” is a prod­uct of Amer­i­can breed­ers. The vari­ety is late-ripen­ing, har­vest­ed in August. Fruit weight 190 — 240 g. The pulp is of high taste, yel­low, the stone is eas­i­ly sep­a­rat­ed. Nec­tarine “Red Gold” is char­ac­ter­ized by high trans­porta­bil­i­ty and long shelf life.
• Crim­son Gold. Win­ter-hardy, ear­ly-grow­ing, high-yield­ing vari­ety, ripens in the first or sec­ond decade of July. The fruits are large 115 — 130 g, the pulp is juicy, sweet, melts in your mouth. Oth­er vari­eties of peach or nec­tarine are need­ed for pol­li­na­tion.
• “Donat”. A com­plete­ly new vari­ety, which is very pop­u­lar in Europe. Ear­ly fruit­ing, high yield — up to 50 kg per tree. Fruits weigh 130 — 140 g, the pulp is juicy, sweet, fra­grant. Peach nec­tarine vari­ety “Donat” frost-resis­tant, resis­tant to com­mon dis­eases and pests.
• “Nov­el”. Colum­nar nec­tarine, late ripen­ing. The vari­ety is high-yield­ing, the fruits are large, beau­ti­ful, weighty, with a del­i­cate rasp­ber­ry blush. The pulp is juicy, ten­der, aro­mat­ic. The cul­ture tol­er­ates low tem­per­a­tures well, is unpre­ten­tious in care.
• “Fan­ta­sy”. Win­ter-hardy, resis­tant to dis­eases and pests vari­ety. The fruits are large, yel­low with rud­dy stains. The pulp is sweet, juicy, aro­mat­ic.
• “Beloved”. The pulp has a sweet and sour har­mo­nious taste. The fruits reach a weight of 150 — 170 g. The tree is frost-resis­tant, unpre­ten­tious in care.
• Stark San­g­lo. The tree reach­es a height of 2.5 — 3 m. The vari­ety is high-yield­ing, frost-resis­tant. The fruits are yel­low with a red blush. The pulp is sweet with a bare­ly notice­able sour­ness.

Useful properties of nectarine

Nec­tarine is a healthy fruit rich in min­er­als and vit­a­mins, which, when used cor­rect­ly, brings great ben­e­fits to the body of adults and chil­dren. The ben­e­fits of fruit are invalu­able:

• Accel­er­ates the removal of tox­ins and tox­ins that poi­son the body and neg­a­tive­ly affect over­all well-being.
• Par­tic­i­pates in car­bo­hy­drate metab­o­lism, nor­mal­iz­ing cho­les­terol lev­els and pre­vent­ing the devel­op­ment of ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis.
• Nor­mal­izes metab­o­lism, helps to get rid of excess weight and main­tain nor­mal body weight after weight loss.
• Calms the ner­vous sys­tem, improves mood, helps in the fight against depres­sion, neu­roses, insom­nia.
• Strength­ens blood ves­sels, favor­ably affects the heart mus­cle.
• Par­tic­i­pates in the process­es of hematopoiesis, is an excel­lent pre­ven­tion of iron defi­cien­cy ane­mia.
• Enhances the secre­tion of diges­tive enzymes, pro­motes the diges­tion of heavy, fat­ty foods.
• Strength­ens the immune sys­tem, increas­es immune resis­tance to virus­es and infec­tions.

For men

Nec­tarine, whose calo­rie con­tent is low, is rec­om­mend­ed to be includ­ed in the diet of men suf­fer­ing from excess weight. A healthy fruit will accel­er­ate the excre­tion of heavy met­al salts, help nor­mal­ize cho­les­terol lev­els, speed up metab­o­lism, and strength­en pro­tec­tive func­tions.

Ripe fruits will pro­tect the male body from can­cer and car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases. Fruit con­tains zinc, which is active­ly involved in the syn­the­sis of male sex hor­mones. Nec­tarine juice improves the com­po­si­tion of sperm, so the drink is rec­om­mend­ed for men who are prepar­ing to con­ceive a child. Fresh­ly squeezed nec­tarine juice is used to com­bat iron defi­cien­cy ane­mia and beriberi.

For women

As with men, women can use the fruit as a ben­e­fi­cial addi­tion to their diet. Nec­tarine kcal con­tains 45 — 50 per 100 grams. This fea­ture is impor­tant to con­sid­er when leav­ing the dietary menu. Calo­rie depends on the vari­ety, the sweet­er the fruit, the more sug­ar they con­tain, of course, and the calo­rie con­tent increas­es by sev­er­al units.

It is rec­om­mend­ed that preg­nant women include sweet and juicy fruit in the diet. Nec­tarine helps to suc­cess­ful­ly fight tox­i­co­sis, nor­mal­izes the diges­tive sys­tem, pre­vent­ing the devel­op­ment of con­sti­pa­tion, which is faced by almost every woman who is expect­ing a baby.

The con­tent of potas­si­um and mag­ne­sium favor­ably affects the state of the car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tem, which expe­ri­ences an increased load dur­ing preg­nan­cy. Nec­tarine juice has a pro­nounced diuret­ic effect, helps to get rid of ede­ma and high blood pres­sure, accel­er­at­ing the removal of excess flu­id.

For kids

Nec­tarine rarely caus­es an aller­gic reac­tion in chil­dren, so it can be intro­duced into the diet at 7–8 months. The first feed­ing is bet­ter to start with small por­tions — 0.5 — 1 tea­spoon. If the child’s body has well absorbed the prod­uct and no neg­a­tive reac­tions have occurred, the por­tion can be grad­u­al­ly increased.

The fruit favor­ably affects the growth and devel­op­ment of the child:

• strength­ens the immune sys­tem;
• helps to get rid of con­sti­pa­tion;
• nor­mal­izes the work of the stom­ach and intestines;
• calms the ner­vous sys­tem;
• elim­i­nates beriberi and signs of iron defi­cien­cy ane­mia;
• nor­mal­izes metab­o­lism;
• strength­ens mus­cles and bones.

Harm

When used cor­rect­ly, nec­tarine is absolute­ly harm­less to the body of adults and chil­dren. Per day it is allowed to eat 4 — 5 fruits for adults, and 2 — 3 for chil­dren. If the prod­uct is abused, diar­rhea, flat­u­lence may devel­op. Ripe fruits con­tain a lot of sug­ar, so peo­ple with a diag­no­sis of dia­betes need to be intro­duced into the diet with cau­tion.

Contraindications

The prod­uct is con­traindi­cat­ed for peo­ple who are diag­nosed with such dis­eases:

• ten­den­cy to food aller­gies;
• dia­betes;
• pan­cre­ati­tis;
• chole­cys­ti­tis;
• spas­tic col­i­tis.

Do not for­get that in order to increase the shelf life, the fruits are treat­ed with harm­ful chem­i­cals, which, once in the body, can cause poi­son­ing or intesti­nal upset. There­fore, before eat­ing a juicy fruit, you need to thor­ough­ly wash it in warm water. For greater safe­ty, you can peel the fruit from the skin, but with it you will lose many vit­a­mins. To pro­tect your­self and your child from poi­son­ing and oth­er unde­sir­able con­se­quences, buy fruits in sea­son and choose fruits that look nat­ur­al.

Selection and storage of nectarine

The peel of ripe fruits is bright, sat­u­rat­ed, usu­al­ly orange-red, less often there is a yel­low tint. When choos­ing, pay atten­tion to the integri­ty of the peel. Qual­i­ty fruits with­out defects, cracks, dark spots. The flesh should be elas­tic, give in a lit­tle when pressed. Too soft fruits of sat­u­rat­ed col­or, most like­ly, are already over­ripe and have lost most of their use­ful prop­er­ties. Greens are also not ready to eat. They do not have a very pleas­ant taste, hard flesh.

Ripe fruits can be stored in box­es by plac­ing them in a dark, cool room. To keep fruits longer, you can wrap each nec­tarine with food paper. For long-term stor­age, it is rec­om­mend­ed to peri­od­i­cal­ly inspect each nec­tarine for dark­en­ing and rot­ting areas.

You can store fruits in the refrig­er­a­tor. It is advis­able to place them on the bot­tom shelf, after wrap­ping them with food paper. If you want to enjoy nec­tarines in win­ter, you can freeze them in the freez­er. It is advis­able to use an air­tight con­tain­er as a con­tain­er, putting fruit slices into it and pump­ing out the air. You can also pre­pare con­ser­va­tion:

• com­pote with whole fruits;
• jam;
• jams;
• but­ter.

Nectarine in cooking

In sea­son, it is best to eat fresh fruit. Adher­ents of a healthy lifestyle use nec­tarine to pre­pare a mul­ti-com­po­nent vit­a­min sal­ad. Nec­tarine is ide­al­ly com­bined with such fruits:

• apples;
• bananas;
• peach­es;
• apri­cots;
• plums;
• pears;
• man­go etc.

You can add fruits to fresh­ly pre­pared cock­tails, smooth­ies. The fruit is suit­able for mak­ing nec­tarine juice, which per­fect­ly quench­es thirst and refresh­es on a hot day.

In sum­mer, you can make fruit frozen ice from the juicy pulp. Pieces of fruit are ide­al­ly com­bined with home­made yogurt, curd mass, soft dessert cheese.

Sweet fruits are the per­fect fill­ing for bak­ing, which can be added to such del­i­ca­cies:

• crois­sants;
• pies;
• pies;
• cake cream;
• pan­cakes.

Nectarine in medicine

Nec­tarine helps in the pre­ven­tion of such dis­eases:

• arte­r­i­al hyper­ten­sion;
• heart fail­ure;
• ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis;
• cataract and age-relat­ed reti­nal degen­er­a­tion;
• asth­ma, bron­chi­tis;
• obe­si­ty;
• con­sti­pa­tion, gas­troin­testi­nal dis­or­ders;
• urolithi­a­sis dis­ease;
• immun­od­e­fi­cien­cy, iron defi­cien­cy ane­mia, beriberi.

In addi­tion, ripe nec­tarines effec­tive­ly com­bat pre­ma­ture skin aging, accel­er­ate wound heal­ing, and treat hyper­pig­men­ta­tion. There­fore, nec­tarine and seed extracts are added to cos­met­ic creams, gels, ton­ics, and cleans­ing milks.