You put a carton of blueberries in your grocery cart and grab a few oranges for the fruit bowl, feeling good about both choices. In a CDC ranking of nutrient-dense produce, neither claims the top spot among familiar fruits, and the fruit that does may be sitting in the same citrus display.
In short
- Lemon ranked highest among the familiar citrus and berry fruits in a CDC-published nutrient density study.
- Its score was 18.72, ahead of strawberries at 17.59 and oranges at 12.91.
- Blueberries did not meet the study’s cutoff for its powerhouse list.
- The study compared how much of 17 nutrients foods provide for their calories.
Lemon led the familiar fruits
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You may keep a lemon in the kitchen for its juice, while an orange or a bowl of berries feels more like fruit to eat. In this ranking, the lemon came out ahead. Its nutrient density score of 18.72 topped the other familiar citrus and berry fruits studied.
Jennifer Di Noia of William Paterson University led the research, which appeared in the CDC’s journal Preventing Chronic Disease in 2014. The study of 47 foods put lemon above strawberry, which scored 17.59, and orange, which scored 12.91. That makes the fruit you might squeeze over a meal the standout in this everyday group.
The numbers give that result a little more shape. Lemon’s lead over strawberry was small, while its lead over orange was wider. Both comparisons come from the same scoring method, so you can see how each fruit placed on the study’s scale.
The score counted nutrients per calorie
Think of the foods you might set out on your counter: a lemon, an orange, a carton of berries. The researchers compared them by looking at nutrients in relation to calories. They calculated each food’s score from the average share of daily values it supplied for 17 nutrients per 100 calories.
To make the powerhouse list, a food had to supply an average of at least 10% of the daily value across those nutrients per 100 calories. That was the study’s qualifying standard. Of the 47 foods examined, 41 met it.
Lemon cleared that mark and earned the highest score among the citrus and berries. The ranking was about how much of the measured nutrients a food offered for its calories, not how large a place it usually has in your fruit bowl. That is why this small, tart fruit drew attention in a study covering so many kinds of produce.
Blueberries missed the list
Blueberries are the name you might expect to see beside strawberries and oranges. In this study, they were not among the 41 foods that qualified as powerhouse fruits and vegetables. They fell short of the cutoff used to make the final list.
Raspberries and cranberries missed it, too. Tangerines, garlic, and onions completed the group of 6 foods studied that did not qualify. Lemon, orange, and strawberry all made the list, with lemon scoring highest among those 3.
So the answer depends on what the researchers counted. They used a set group of nutrients and the same per-calorie measure for every food. On that measure, the lemon outscored the oranges and berries you may be more likely to reach for when you want fruit.
The limit
Lemon was not the highest-scoring food in the entire study: watercress held that spot with a score of 100. Tomato, pumpkin, and red pepper also scored above lemon; they are commonly grouped with vegetables in discussions of the results. The score covered 17 nutrients, so a food missing the cutoff, including blueberry, was not judged on every quality it might offer. And a lemon’s tart taste can make it a different choice from fruit you would eat on its own.
