The perfect sweet-tart balance of blueberries

I am yet to meet a kid who doesn't love blueberries.

- NANDITA IYER

I've documented my son's love for them even as a toddler in a 2013 blog post where he illustrated a recipe for lemon blueberry muffins at the age of 5. Even today, blueberries are his top pick. It helps that they're no longer as wildly expensive as they used to be, and large packets of frozen blueberries are easy to find, making them perfect for smoothies, baked goods, and pancakes.

In my book, Everyday Superfoods (2021), I did a nutritional face-off between amla (Indian gooseberries) and blueberries. Yes, it's a bit like comparing apples and oranges because you can't convince a kid that amla is tastier than berries. Amla has 50 times the antioxidants of blueberries. Yet, every superfood list on the web ranks blueberries as No. 1—clearly, this fruit has global appeal and availability. This got me thinking about the reasons behind the popularity of blueberries.

Blue foods are rare in nature, so we naturally gravitate toward them. Foods like blue corn and blue potatoes are not regularly available around the world.

There's also the Bangalore Blue variety of grapes, which is available from March to May in Bengaluru and has a deep purplish-blue hue. However, being a seeded variety, it is not commonly eaten as a table grape.