Sunday, April 14, 2013

Blueberry

This may come as a shock when I tell you that there isn’t even a single blueberry growing in the forests of Finland. Those “blue berries” that we see are actually called bilberries. Both of those species are included in the same family but their Latin names are different, making them two different species. The Latin name for blueberry is Vaccinium cyanococcus and for the bilberry it’s Vaccinium myrtillus.

The actual blueberries can be found in North-America and in some parts of Europe and Asia. Bilberries grow predominantly in Europe but also in Northern Asia, Western Canada, and the Western United States.

There is a lot of confusion between the two berries since they are really similar. The easiest way to tell which one is which is to look the colour of the berry’s flesh. Bilberries are dark on the inside while blueberries are light or translucent.

5 comments:

  1. This was something new at least for me! I have always thought I've been eating blueberries. What a tragedy. I'm wondering now if the berries we have in Finland have still all the same healthy things in them as the real blueberries.. Because I've heard that blueberries are categorized as superfood and that's why I've always been so proud that in FINLAND we have got superfood just to pick from the ground, so easy! But now I'm not so sure anymore.. Maybe I'll have to explore this thing and travel to a country with the real blueberries.

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  2. What the f**k, I have never heard that those aren`t blueberry, but now I know that. Good text and I think that is new information for many people.

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  3. You did very good job! It is always great to learn something new. After reading this text I definitely know the difference between blueberry and bilberry. You did really good research because you found so much information which was unfamiliar for me before this. The writing form of text was very clear, I didn't find any mistakes and it contained a lot of information.

    I still can't belive that every people in Finland have been calling those berries with a wrong name. I have to do my own research and make sure that our "blueberries" are really being called as bilberry.

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  4. Oh my.. I think i need to rethink everything. How people in Finland don't know about this? I think that everybody in Finland has called them blueberries. Even our schoolbooks tells us that they are called blueberries! I am so confused right now. I don't know who to trust anymore.

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  5. Wow this is shocking! I was really surprised to read this, thank you for writing this blog. I bet that not many people know this.

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