Berry

The term berry, in common parlance and in cuisine, refers generically to any small, edible fruit with multiple seeds. Aggregate fruits such as the blackberry, the raspberry, and the boysenberry are also berries in this sense, but not the botanical.

These fruits tend to be small, sweet, juicy, and of a bright color contrasting with their background to make them more attractive to animals that eat them, thus dispersing the seeds of the plant.

As berry colors derive from natural pigments synthesized by the plant, a special field of health research has focused on the anti-disease properties of pigmented polyphenols, such as flavonoids, anthocyanins, and tannins among other phytochemicals localized mainly in berry peels (skins) and seeds. Related to the biological properties of berry pigments is antioxidant ability for which berries are notable due to their relatively high oxygen radical absorbance capacity ("ORAC") among plant foods. Together with good nutrient content, ORAC distinguishes several berries within a new category of functional foods called "superfruits", a rapidly growing multi-billion dollar industry which began in 2005.