Goji Berries?

I work at a Geothermal power plant as an operator. It can be tough work both mentally and physically. You have to be able to understand complex systems and how they relate to each other. If you make an adjustment on one system you have the potential to affect another dependent system. If something bad happens then you have to be able to respond quickly and some of the things you must do require strength and stamina. Adrenaline can help for a while but at the end of the day or week for that matter you can be left feeling pretty drained.

I personally did not feel like doing much of anything after I got home from my final day of a seven day shift of twelve hour days with an hour commute each way. There was so much that needed to get done at home. I tried to make things happen but it was as if I was walking through waist high mud. I felt . It was under these conditions that I was introduced to super foods. These are nutrient rich foods, simply loaded with vitamins, trace minerals, amino acids and powerful antioxidants. I started incorporating them into my diet and people at work started to notice, "why are you still skipping down the steps at the end of the day?" People at home started to notice as well, seeing as I was twenty pounds lighter than just a few months prior.

One of my favorite of the many super foods is the goji berry. It seems this little red berry has been getting a great deal of attention lately and for good reason. The following is an actual experience that I had at work involving goji berries. Other names have been changed to protect their anonymity.

I was eating some goji berries at work when "Tiny T" a guy from another crew who was in for some overtime asked me what they were. "Goji berries," I said. "I heard of those. Can I have some?" I gave him a handful and told him that they were a higher source of antioxidants than any other berry currently known in the western world. They have a higher ORAC rating than the acai, blueberry or pomegranate. Also they are supposed to help improve your mood, or something like that, I had heard somewhere. "What do you call them? Gogo bears?"

"Goji berries."

"Google berries?"

"Goji berries."

"Does your daughter eat them?"

"Oh yeah, she loves 'em. She ask me, 'mo goji bewwies pwease.'"

"How old is she?"

"Almost two."

"Man that is sad, your two year old can say it better than I can... Gogo bears?"

"Keep trying."

A week later I was working overtime on his crew when another one of his crewmates asked about the berries I was eating. I told him what they were. "Oh are those the energy berries Tiny T was talking about?" I let him try some and thought about why he had called them energy berries. Sure enough when I saw Tiny T later that day he told me about how he had noticed that when he was feeling drained in the afternoon from a hard morning of work that he ate some of those berries and felt like he could actually finish the days work without feeling like he was having to work through molasses.

I knew that goji berries were good for you. They were a great source of antioxidants which help reduce oxidative damage to cells and tissues. They are also a great source of iron and protein, which I thought was interesting for a little berry. I had never really thought of berries as having much protein, but then it does make sense seeing as they are a big part of a wild bear's diet and bears have always been a symbol of strength, endurance and power. Protein is a great source of energy so that made sense to me.

Then I found out a little more about how iron works in the human system. I am not to clear on all of the details but a couple of the things that it helps to accomplish is to improve mood and energy by restoring balance to your bodies chemistry. I know that iron is used in red blood cells to carry nutrients throughout the body so one of the things that I would hypothesize is if you do not have enough iron in your system it would be pretty hard for your blood to deliver the nutrients that your body needs for energy and mental function. Thus replenishing your iron levels to normal would help you to operate at full efficiency and for me running at full capacity... makes me pretty happy.

Tweet