National Strawberries and Cream Day is observed annually on May 21st. Fresh strawberries and homemade whipped cream is a must when strawberries are in season. They are the perfect, refreshing, light snack on a beautiful warm day!
Strawberries are a very healthy snack as they are low-fat, low in calories and an excellent source of vitamin C, fiber, folic acid, and potassium.
- Strawberries are the only fruit with seeds on the outside.
- The ancient Romans believed that strawberries alleviated symptoms of melancholy, fainting, all inflammations, fevers, throat infections, kidney stones, bad breath, attacks of gout, and diseases of the blood, liver and spleen.
- Strawberries are the first fruit to ripen in the spring.
- Over 53 percent of seven to nine-year-olds picked strawberries as their favorite fruit.
- In a test, subjects who ate nitrate rich foods like strawberries, before exercising burned 100 more calories than those who did not.
- Folklore states that if you split a double strawberry in half and share it with someone of the opposite sex, you’ll soon fall in love. Try it!
- Did you know strawberries can help whiten your teeth? All thanks to the fruity acids, which help remove stains.
- Strawberry juice mixed with a little honey can soothe sunburn… rub the mixture into the skin and rinse off with warm water and lemon juice.
- Some of the earliest accounts of strawberries came from ancient Rome circa 200 BC. The first sketch of a strawberry plant was printed in 1484.
- The strawberry belongs to the genus Fragraria in the rose family, along with apples and plums. The name of the scientific classification was derived from the Old Latin word for fragrant. The modern Italian word for strawberry is still “Fragola”.
- Native American Indians called strawberries “heart-seed berries” and pounded them into their traditional corn-meal bread.
- In fourteenth-century France, Charles V ordered twelve hundred strawberry plants to be grown in the Royal Gardens of the Louvre.
- If all the strawberries produced in California this year were laid berry to berry, they’d wrap around the world 15 times. That’s enough strawberries to provide every U.S. household with 12 pint baskets.
- Strawberry juice combined with honey will reduce inflammation or sunburn. Rub the mixture thoroughly into the skin before rinsing off with warm water and lemon juice.
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