Red kiwi poised to make a healthy debut

First there was green, then yellow and now red-fleshed kiwifruit. A team of researchers in Italy and New Zealand has found that a newly developed variety of red-fleshed kiwifruit contain anthocyanins, bright red pigments that are highly potent antioxidants, which are thought to provide protection against heart disease and cancer.

Kiwifruit already have the reputation of being among the most nutrient dense of all popular fruit and they are also high in antioxidant activity. Now, kiwis come in red and are just as healthy as the other varieties, the researchers say. But you might have to wait a while to try the new red kiwifruit: they are still being commercialized and not yet widely available.

The study, believed to be the first to analyze the anthocyanin content of the red kiwi, was published in the Nov. 7 online version of the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.