Prunes — benefits, contraindications, calories, diet

The ben­e­fits of prunes have long been proven: it con­tains many vit­a­mins, use­ful macro- and microele­ments, organ­ic acids. This dried fruit per­fect­ly cleans­es the intestines, helps the body get rid of excess flu­id, improves metab­o­lism, pre­vents the devel­op­ment of caries and osteo­poro­sis.

Prunes are dried fruits of home­made plums of dif­fer­ent vari­eties (the most com­mon­ly used vari­eties are Hun­gar­i­an, Stan­ley, Ren­klod Altana, Cro­magne, Naroch. High-qual­i­ty prunes are soft, resilient, have a pleas­ant aro­ma and a slight­ly tart, sour-sweet taste. Usu­al­ly when dried from 1 kg of fresh plums, about 200 g of prunes are obtained.

Prunes — useful properties

Prunes are extreme­ly rich in valu­able sub­stances: these are organ­ic acids (oxal­ic, cit­ric, espe­cial­ly mal­ic), and fiber, and pectin, as well as cal­ci­um, mag­ne­sium, phos­pho­rus, and iron. In terms of potas­si­um con­tent, prunes are 1.5 times high­er than bananas. Prunes con­tain healthy sug­ars — fruc­tose, sucrose, glu­cose (at least 57%) and a whole set of vit­a­mins — A, the whole group of vit­a­mins B, C, PP. labla

Table 1. The con­tent of vit­a­mins in 100 g of prunes

vit­a­mins	Con­tent in 100 g of prunes
Thi­amin (Vit­a­min B1)	0.060–0.092 mg
Riboflavin (vit­a­min B2)	0.080–0.100 mg
Pan­tothenic Acid (Vit­a­min B3)	0.460 mg
Pyri­dox­ine (vit­a­min B6)	0.118–0.175 mg
Folic acid (vit­a­min B9)	3.8–5.3 μg
Ascor­bic acid (vit­a­min C)	3.0–5.0 mg
Alpha Toco­pherol (Vit­a­min E)	1.50–3.00 mg
Gam­ma-toco­pherol	0.05–1.20 mg
Nico­tinic acid (vit­a­min PP)	1.90–1.95 mg
Phyl­lo­qui­none (vit­a­min K)	59.6 μg
Biotin	0.7 μg
Alpha carotene	56.0 μg
Beta-carotene	317.0–697.0 μg

Table 2 The con­tent of macroele­ments in 100 g of prunes

Macronu­tri­ents	Con­tent in 100 g of prunes
Sil­i­con	19.5 mg
Potas­si­um	780.0 mg
Mag­ne­sium	42.0–80.0 mg
Cal­ci­um	22.0–80.0 mg
Sodi­um	8.5–10.0 mg
Phos­pho­rus	72.8–84.6 mg
Chlo­rine	3.0 mg
Sul­fur	43.0 mg

Table 3 The con­tent of trace ele­ments in 100 g of prunes

trace ele­ments	Con­tent in 100 g of prunes
Vana­di­um	6.0 mcg
Alu­minum	336.0 μg
Brown	57.0 μg
Iron	2.4–3.0 mg
Cobalt	3.8 μg
Iodine	0.75–1.00 μg
Molyb­de­num	9.5 mcg
Cop­per	385.0 μg
Nick­el	60.0 μg
Rubid­i­um	42.0 μg
Zinc	540.0 μg

prunes calories

100 g of prunes con­tain 250–256 kcal (pro­teins — 2.2 g, fats — 0.7 g, car­bo­hy­drates 57.4 g).

Can prunes be con­sid­ered a dietary prod­uct? On the one hand, prunes are not a low-calo­rie prod­uct, they con­tain a lot of car­bo­hy­drates. On the oth­er hand, 2–3 prunes pro­vide a feel­ing of sati­ety and pro­mote good bow­el func­tion.

Con­clu­sion: dur­ing the diet, prunes can be con­sumed in small (2–3 pieces per day) quan­ti­ties.

What prunes help with:

Accord­ing to research, prunes have ton­ic prop­er­ties, enhance work­ing capac­i­ty, and improve mem­o­ry. Doc­tors rec­om­mend includ­ing prunes in the diet to cleanse the liv­er, pre­vent can­cer, and strength­en immu­ni­ty.

Prunes are also indis­pens­able for the elder­ly: only 4 pieces of prunes per day help get rid of con­sti­pa­tion.

Prunes are good for health because:

• nor­mal­izes metab­o­lism;
• improves the func­tion­ing of the gas­troin­testi­nal tract;
• relieves the con­di­tion with chron­ic con­sti­pa­tion and obe­si­ty;
• pro­motes the removal of tox­ins from the body;
• helps with dis­rup­tion of the heart mus­cle;
• con­tributes to the nor­mal­iza­tion of blood pres­sure;
• con­tributes to the pre­ven­tion of caries;
• dis­in­fects the body with intesti­nal infec­tious dis­eases;
• stim­u­lates the brain;
• improves eye­sight;
• con­tributes to the pre­ven­tion of osteo­poro­sis.

Pedi­a­tri­cians advise includ­ing prunes in the diet of school­child­ren: the con­cen­tra­tion of carotene in prunes helps to pre­serve vision.

Prunes — harm and contraindications

Before using nat­ur­al prunes or adding them to var­i­ous dish­es, it is nec­es­sary to rinse them thor­ough­ly with hot water. This is due to the fact that dur­ing the pro­duc­tion process, prunes may have been treat­ed with harm­ful chem­i­cals that can harm the body. Many sup­pli­ers treat dried fruits with glyc­erin or veg­etable oils such as indus­tri­al olive oil (olein) to give them a shine. There­fore, in order to reduce the harm of prunes to zero, it is bet­ter to rinse it with hot water and pour boil­ing water over it before use.

Prunes are con­traindi­cat­ed in such cas­es:

• with indi­vid­ual intol­er­ance
• while breast­feed­ing
• with dia­betes
• if diag­nosed with obe­si­ty
• with diges­tive dis­or­ders and a ten­den­cy to flat­u­lence

Prunes — recipes

Prunes are con­sumed both in their nat­ur­al form and as part of var­i­ous dish­es. For exam­ple, you can put prunes in oat­meal in the morn­ing — and you don’t have to add sug­ar to it, which will sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the calo­rie con­tent of break­fast.

There are a lot of recipes with prunes. Prunes go well with any meat, poul­try, root veg­eta­bles, cheese, nuts and choco­late. Prunes also go well with meat dish­es.

It is believed that prunes with a stone have more ben­e­fits than peeled ones. How­ev­er, recipes with prunes always use dried pit­ted fruits.

Cherry Plum — Healthy Recipes

Mousse with prunes

You will need:

• 250 g prunes,
• ¼ table­spoon of salt
• 250 g sour cream
• 1 liter of milk,
• 1 liter of sour milk (for this, sour cream is dilut­ed with milk in half),
• 4 table­spoons flour
• 1 cup of sug­ar,
• 3 tea­spoons of cin­na­mon.

Cook­ing:

1. Put the prunes in a deep bowl, fill with water (so that the water only cov­ers the prunes), stew until soft.
2. Drain in a colan­der and let cool.
3. In a large skil­let over low heat, heat the flour with a lit­tle milk until the flour is wet but thick­ened.
4. Then add the remain­ing milk, salt, sour cream and sour milk. Heat slow­ly until a vis­cous mass is obtained.
5. Mix sug­ar and cin­na­mon and slow­ly pour into the cool­ing mass.
6. And then add the stewed prunes and stir well.
7. Keep in refrig­er­a­tor for at least 24 hours. Enjoy your meal!

Sweets from prunes, dried apricots and raisins

You will need:

• 70 g prunes,
• 50 g raisins,
• 10 pieces of hazel­nuts or wal­nuts,
• 2 tea­spoons hon­ey
• 3 table­spoons vanil­la sug­ar.

Cook­ing:

1. Rinse prunes and raisins well and grind into puree (with a blender or meat grinder).
2. Add hon­ey and stir. If you want it sour, you can with­out hon­ey.
3. Take a table­spoon of the mix­ture, form balls with your hands, put a nut inside and roll in vanil­la sug­ar (crushed nuts or coconut flakes can be used instead of sug­ar).
4. Leave in the refrig­er­a­tor for 2 hours.

Prunes — for skin beauty

The fact that prunes con­tain antiox­i­dants has long been known to cos­me­tol­o­gists. Did you know that prunes can help not only the intestines, but also the skin? Prunes are rich in ele­ments that can improve com­plex­ion, get rid of inflam­ma­tion and mois­tur­ize the skin. Prunes masks also help to main­tain the elas­tic­i­ty of the skin of the face.

Mask for acne

Pour 100 ml of boil­ing water over 4 prunes, leave to infuse for 30–40 min­utes. After the set time has elapsed, chop the swollen prunes and add 1 tbsp to it. yogurt or kefir. Apply the mix­ture on the skin and keep it for 10 min­utes. After that, wash with warm water.

Lotion for inflamed skin

Wash well 4 prunes, fine­ly chop and pour half a glass of boil­ing water. Strained infu­sion wipe the skin in the evening, then rinse with warm water and apply a nour­ish­ing cream.

Mask for all skin types

Steam 3 prunes, grind to a puree state, add 1 tsp to the mass. hon­ey and some cin­na­mon. Mix every­thing thor­ough­ly and apply on face for 15 min­utes, then rinse with warm water.

Hand mask

Fine­ly chop steamed prunes, add 1 yolk and 1 tsp. olive oil. Apply the mix­ture on your hands, hold for 20 min­utes, then rinse with warm water.

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