Oh So Blue, Berry

The heat is here! Which means unlimited amounts of popsicles and ice cream, right? Well... it's true that sometimes the easiest way to cool off is from the inside out, but a lot of delicious-looking frozen treats are high in sugar and artificial sweeteners (even the ones that claim to be good for you).  For example, Blue Bunny FrozFruit Chunky Strawberry, which proudly proclaims that it is fat free, contains 36 grams of sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Yikes.

My personal favorite summer cool-down snack is frozen fruit. You can either freeze the fruit yourself or buy it already frozen (just make sure to look at the ingredients or the small print when buying frozen fruit; it should say something like "no added sugar" and the ingredient list should contain only fruit). My new go-to summer snack is frozen blueberries. I can buy a large, resealable, store-brand bag of deliciousness for much cheaper than fresh blueberries, and they're a great way to cool down. 1 cup contains 90 calories, no fat, 4g of fiber, 15g of sugar, and 1g of protein. Frozen fruit is also great for adding to yogurt in the summer months. The fruit will thaw a bit, but it will still be an extra-cold treat. While you're at it, why not make your own smoothie-pops? Mix together some plain yogurt and frozen berries, toss them into a popsicle mold or ice trays, and a few hours later enjoy!

Other fruits that are delicious frozen include strawberries and raspberries (also often available already frozen with no added sugar), basically any berry, and then an old stand-by of mine, grapes. You can even substitute frozen fruit for ice when serving a refreshing summer beverage; try frozen raspberries in your lemonade, frozen blueberries in your iced tea, or frozen grapes in your orange juice.

One word of caution when eating frozen blueberries... for some reason when the temperature drops, the color seems to be a bit more concentrated, so probably best not to eat a lot of them before an important meeting or photo shoot (unless that photo shoot is for a story about eating blueberries like this one was):

You won't exactly turn into a blueberry like Violet did in Willy Wonka, but your tongue will turn a lovely shade of purple for a little while!