10 Boring Fruits With Amazing Health Benefits

Fancy superfruits like guava, mangosteen, acai, and goji tout sky-high levels of antioxidants and vitamins. And with their standout nutrient profiles, as UC Davis notes, it’s no wonder food marketers often call them “super.” But the truth is, a wealth of research has shown that the ordinary apples, grapes, and other fruits that make our shopping lists week after week boast some pretty impressive health benefits of their own.

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Eating even slightly more fruits (as well as vegetables) may lower your odds of developing type 2 diabetes, research has suggested. And note: Eating fancy superfruits wasn’t a requirement to reap these diabetes prevention perks. “The truth is, all fruits promote health and provide a variety of essential nutrients, such as fiber, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals, making them worth building into our daily diets, no matter how basic and accessible they might be,” says Malina Malkani, RDN, creator of Solve Picky Eating, who is based in the New York City area.

Plus, the accessibility of ordinary fruits may mean a greater likelihood you’ll add them to your plate. One of the great things about common fruit is that “consumers are more familiar with what they are and how they taste, and they are more comfortable with them in the kitchen, allowing them to put those fruits to use in a variety of ways,” says Jessica Levinson, RDN, a culinary nutrition expert in New Rochelle, New York.

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And yes, eating fruits whole for snacking is a good idea, but so, too, is incorporating them into meals in less expected ways. “As a dietitian and mom of three, I’ve seen how truly impactful it can be to help kids learn to enjoy all sort of fruits — the widely available ones, too — by getting creative in the kitchen and experimenting with different preparations, such as baked, sautéed, fresh, roasted, poached, in muffins, or as toast toppings,” adds Malkani.

Read on to see just how good those shopping-cart staples are for your health. Bear in mind, though, that most of the following research is limited. Primarily that’s because conducting nutrition research in humans poses a number of challenges, including relying on self-reported data. Much research, in turn, is conducted on animals — and what works in animals can’t necessarily be used to inform human health behaviors, one researcher noted.