During the giving season, spreading good news makes a lot of good “cents” for FruitFast customers.

It’s the right time to replenish your personal supply of some of FruitFast’s popular supplements and to give the gift of good, healthy eating at the same time.

FruitFast’s Black Raspberry Softgel Capsules and our newest product, Great Lakes Cranberry Softgels, are both discounted 50%.  Made from USA grown premium fruit, both softgels are manufactured using our proprietary process that utilizes the whole fruit, including the pulp and skin, and contain naturally-occurring antioxidants.

Black raspberries help maintain healthy cardiovascular function* and support a healthy immune system*.   In the case of Great Lakes Cranberry Softgels, this well-known fruit helps maintain healthy urinary tract function* in every 800 mg capsule.  Now is the time to stock up while prices are low and supplies last.

FruitFast has not forgotten another important member of the family.  CherryFlex® for Dogs has also been reduced by 50% for our furry friends for a short time.  That is a savings of $10 per bottle of 60 capsules.  What a wonderful stocking stuffer for the dog lovers on your list!  Learn more about the advantages of this pet product developed and offered exclusively by FruitFast.

We welcome your toll free calls and inquiries about our family of quality fruit products – including Montmorency tart cherry juice concentrate and CherryFlex® softgels.

Our staff is waiting to assist you when you call  toll free 1-877-599-3101.

The Holidays are right around the corner and here at Brownwood Acres/ FruitFast we want to help with your planning and cooking for healthy eating and entertaining this season!

An easy and delicious way to add interest and taste to the standard Thanksgiving meal is the addition of premium dried fruit.  Try adding Montmorency red tart cherries to your family’s favorite turkey dressing recipe or spice up the molded jello salad with dried blueberries.  Another welcome surprise for guests are Brownwood Acre’s dark and milk chocolate covered cherries, which also make much-appreciated gifts any time of year.

Just in time for the Holidays, we are offering customers a savings of $2.00 per bag on all of our one-pound bags of dried fruit – that’s USA grown Montmorency red tart cherries, balaton cherries and wild blueberries.

If you are looking for tried and true, tasty recipes, you have come to the right place.  Gourmet cook Debbie Colaianni shares her world of culinary delights on the FruitFast Recipe blog.  She welcomes your favorite Thanksgiving dishes, too, at Debbie@fruitfast.com.

Order today by calling toll free 1-877-599-3101.  We’re here to help you!

Have you ever heard of a healthy Xylitol chewing gum? My wife’s recent search for a healthy gum for our son was getting all too frustrating until we found a Xylitol gum called Xponent! This healthy pharmaceutical grade Xylitol sweetened chewing gum is the best invention since sliced bread!

Xylitol sweetened chewing gum

This search revealed that chewing gum helps promote saliva production. Saliva is comprised of about 95.5% water but also contains electrolytes, mucus and antibacterial compounds.

Our seemingly simple goal was to stimulate saliva in our son’s mouth and fulfill his gum chewing request. The catch is, we have to do this with a clean conscience. Many of us don’t really have time to read gum labels. The font is so small you need a magnifying glass and when additives are listed at less than 2% of the product, it seems mysteriously harmless.

For us though, part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle is consuming healthy foods as well as avoiding questionable ingredients. Handing something to your unsuspecting 4 year old son is a responsibility beyond equation and taking chances on products deemed “safe at current levels of consumption” is simply not an option.

When we found the Xponent Xylitol gum, we learned that not only is it recommended and used by medical and dental professionals worldwide, it also:

• Has a cool clean sweetness with no aftertaste
• It is safe for both children and pregnant women and
• Promotes healthy bacteria which supports the health of ears and sinuses

We were determined to find a healthier gum without questionable additives and it is now available at Brownwood Acres and FruitFast. The next time you or someone you love reaches for a piece of gum, take it from Brownwood Acres and the grab Xponent Xylitol chewing gum, now available in Fruit, Spearmint and Peppermint flavors and economically packed in a 100 piece jar. Now you may all seriously commence chewing with a clean conscience!

Despite bumper crops of many food commodities this year, most Americans still are not eating enough fruit on a daily basis.   Among the largest group of violators are the ones who should be building strong bodies and bones and stand to lose the most in later years:  America’s teenagers.

The Center for Disease Control found troubling results for teens who don’t appear to be eating the proper amount of fruits – or vegetables.

Under 10 percent of US high school students were getting the recommended daily amount of fruits and vegetables.  That’s a statistic that FruitFast is working to improve.

Only 13 percent of teens are consuming the recommended three helpings of vegetables each day and about 32 percent are eating at least two servings of fruit.  Click here to see how your state’s adults and teens compare to the national average.

State Indicator Report on Fruits and Vegetables 2009

According to the Associated Press, the federal nutrition goals set for 2010 demand at least 75 percent of Americans consume two servings of fruit each day and at least 50 percent to eat three vegetable servings.

“This is a call for states, communities, schools and families to support increased fruit and vegetable consumption,” said Heidi Blanck, with the CDC, who worked on the State Indicator Report on Fruits and Vegetables, 2009.

The CDC says that fruits and vegetables are vital for optimal child growth, weight management and chronic disease prevention.

Whether the fruit and vegetables you eat are fresh, frozen, dried or in some other uncompromised form, it’s important to eat well-balanced meals.

FruitFast promotes healthy living with all our products – for people and pets – believing in the adage “you are what you eat.”

On-the-go, too busy, or out-of-season no longer are good excuses.  We offer an assortment of ways – from juice, liquids, softgels, bars or dried fruits – to enjoy healthy fruits every day.

Visit www.brownwoodacres.com today!

There is renewed interest these days in knowing where our food comes from. More and more people want to be assured that what they consume is fresh and safe to eat.  It’s the trend behind the “Buy Local” campaign that’s sweeping the country.

The Underwoods watch the harvesting of cranberries

It’s the reason why Janet and I took a road trip this past week to visit a Cranberry Bog and see for ourselves where our FruitFast cranberries are grown for our newest fruit product:  Great Lakes Cranberry Softgels.

Our trek took us east across the fingers of the Michigan mitt to the flat farming country near Cheboygan.  We were greeted by Michigan Cranberry Company owners, Wally and Sally Huggett, who open their farm just two days a year so the public can see this unique method of harvesting fruit.

If you think cranberries grow on trees or underwater in wetlands, you’re about to learn something new.

Cranberries grow on low vines and when ripe for picking, unlike tart cherry farmers, there’s no tree shaker to get the job done.  Instead, ripe cranberries are loosened by a special piece of equipment with tynes  mounted on a tractor that rakes the berries from the vines; the field is flooded with water and the cranberries float to the surface.  Much like a cow wrangler herding livestock, workers round-up the berries, encircling them with an inflated hose, and from there they are sucked up into dump trucks and taken to the receiving facility for sorting and grading.  At the end of this process, the cranberries are shipped to processing centers for juicing, canning and freezing.

It’s a beautiful sight to see these bogs brimming with a sea of rosy red cranberries against a backdrop of Fall’s brilliant foliage.  Better yet was the chance to meet another farming family working hard to bring fresh produce to the marketplace.  America farmers are the best!

FruitFast is pleased to purchase fruit from the Huggetts – the state’s largest producer of cranberries and we’re prouder still to know firsthand that we bring our customers choice, locally-grown fruit to ensure top quality fruit supplements.

Take a minute to find out more about the health benefits of cranberries.
It’s a good day when you learn something new – and discover the power of fruit.

It’s always nice to get feedback like this from a FruitFast customer:

Miniature dachshunds, better known as wiener dogs, are prone to back problems as they get older. An active lifestyle can be the cause, which seems backwards…but is true. Activities such as running and jumping can have serious implications in a wiener dogs’ health.

Oscar Meyer (pictured on the right), who is 9-years-old, recently paid a visit to a back specialist and underwent an MRI.  Due to disc issues he was put on bed rest for two weeks. The doctor said he was to scale back on his activity level, and he needed a “lifestyle change.”  Oscar has since been taking CherryFlex for Dogs and is back to his old self (not as much running and jumping though, per doctors orders).

Lola, who is not related to Oscar and is now 3-years-old, is also taking CherryFlex for Dogs in an effort to assist in avoiding future complications.

Since the softgels are beef flavored, they think it’s a great treat, and get quite excited when that bottle shakes.

They both still enjoy the beach, and swimming is actually an encouraged activity. Yes, they think they look good sporting their CherryFlex leashes.

October’s falling temperatures signal the end of the growing season in northern parts of the country.  This bumper crop season for tart cherries, apples and wild blueberries in our fruit-producing region has been a result of near perfect growing conditions.

Fall also signals the harvest of pomegranates in the San Joaquin Valley of California where another plentiful crop is expected.

During October, FruitFast’s featured special is our Wonderful Pomegranate Liquid Fruit Supplement at a 25% savings, only $14.95 per 10 ounce bottle. Each bottle contains 60 teaspoon-sized servings that are 10 calories each and offer 150 mg of Anthocyanins. Made from a combination of our Wonderful Pomegranate Juice Concentrate and our Wonderful Pomegranate Fruit Paste, it mixes into your favorite beverage, yogurt or smoothie. Many of our customers take a teaspoon straight from the bottle or add this healthy liquid to recipes.

Just as delicious and versatile are FruitFast’s CherryFlex and Mixed Berry Liquid Fruit Supplements, an innovative way to pass along the health benefits of these dark-skinned fruits to keep your family in peak condition this winter.

Special pricing continues of $15.95 for our Cranberry Softgels, and we want to remind you of our new, lower prices for most of our fruit juice concentrates.
Like tart cherry juice and wild blueberry concentrates, FruitFast is passing savings on to customers this month as a result of these plentiful fruit harvests.

Wait no longer!  Contact us today and enjoy the harvest.

Tart Cherries were touted again this weekend when Parade Magazine ran an article regarding a study of runners who drank tart cherry juice before a relay race and experienced less discomfort after the relay than those that drank a placebo.  Parade Magazine reported, “Researchers believe the difference may be attributed to flavonoids and anthocyanins with high antioxidant and anti-inflammatory powers.”

These are important findings and sound very familiar to those of us at Brownwood Acres/FruitFast®. These study findings are similar to the research results from Winona State University’s double blind study conducted on our CherryFlex® softgel product in 2008.  The Winona State study results found that our CherryFlex softgels, (Montmorency red tart cherry fruit supplement) significantly altered muscle soreness following strenuous exercise.

Science continues to unlock the secrets to why dark-skinned fruits – like tart cherries, wild blueberries and wonderful pomegranates hold so many beneficial properties. In the case of the Winona study, the subjects were not aging seniors, but active, healthy college students.

It’s always reaffirming to have our studies confirmed by notable and independent sources.

In the meantime, check out the many ways you can enjoy and benefit from FruitFast’s dark-skinned fruit supplements, including our juice concentrates, potent liquids and full line of super fruit softgels.

As long-time cherry farmers, it gives Janet and I a special sense of pride when one of Traverse City’s National Cherry Queens comes from a farming background.  That’s the case this year with queen Angela Sayler of Elk Rapids, whose family has over a hundred year history on the land they have farmed.   We want to introduce you to Angela and learn a bit about her.  We’re proud of her and her family, and prouder yet of our long term friendship.  And one more thing—there must be something special in the fruit grown by the Sayler family.  Angela’s younger sister, Sonya, is also a queen—Miss Elk Rapids.

Bob Underwood
FruitFast

How has life on a farm influenced you and your goals in life?
Angela:

Angela operates a fork lift, loading tanks on semi-trucks for cherry juice concentrate and softgels.

Definitely in a positive manner!  I couldn’t be more proud to be the sixth generation on our family farm.  I am grateful for the generations before me because they have shaped my life and love for the land.  I have a huge sense of pride knowing that the fruit we grow reaches many others.  Working together with my family has taught me how vital hard work and determination are.   It is equally important to be good stewards of the land because I hope to continue our family legacy for future generations.

What would you say to other young people (particularly girls) about pursuing their dreams, no matter how lofty?
My advice to everyone would be to live life and don’t hesitate to take chances!  I truly believe that whatever happens; happens for a reason. If you have faith in yourself and what you want out of life, there is no slowing you down. Find something that makes you happy and don’t be afraid to stand up for it. You will meet people along the way that will support you and guide you along a helpful path.  There is something to be gained from every single life experience, and you have to be ready for whatever is thrown your way.

Angela gives her dad a progress report while running the cherry shaker.

What made you decide to compete for the Cherry Queen title?  And what do you hope to gain from this experience?
Growing up in the area, I have seen the many benefits that cherries bring and I knew that I would love nothing more than to help promote them as well as the industry.  As  the sixth generation of our farm, I recognize how important it is to get involved in something you feel passionate about, and I truly have a passion for cherries! This is a huge honor and I am so excited to see what this year will bring.

How will the title help the cherry industry and the future of agriculture in Northwest Michigan and beyond?
My first goal is to promote cherries.  I am eager to utilize this title by representing the Cherry Capital of the World, the tradition of family farms, and the industry as a whole. I hope to reach out and raise awareness about the importance of cherries to this area as well as nationwide. It is such an amazing source of nutrition, it really is a ‘super fruit’ and through marketing and special promotions others will be able to clearly see the benefits of being involved.  I am also honored to be representing the area farmers that are dedicated to educating people.

How does working on a farm impact you?
First of all, working on our farm has been so rewarding.  I have always appreciated the fact that I was born into this valued way of life.  It has taught me that anything is possible through our strong sense of family pride. I have been given so many opportunities to meet truly outstanding individuals in the industry, and I am excited that my experiences on the farm may help me reach out further to educate others.

Queens Angela (far left) and Sonya take an orchard break with their dad, Rick, and Bob Underwood/FruitFast owner and longtime farming friend.

Anything else you would like to comment about as you get into your year-long reign as the National Cherry Queen?
I am really hoping to get out there and do whatever is necessary to help promote the industry. I am eager to in some way, repay all of the wonderful people who have made a difference in my life thus far.

Fall is the perfect time.   It’s when schedules switch back to the school calendar and life seems to have more purpose and focus.   Sure, I’ll miss the summer’s outdoor activities of campfires, beach walks and baseball, but harvest time signals an explosion of Fall color, the missed excitement of  football games, and those bountiful farm markets with bushel baskets brimming with tempting fruit and produce.

If only all that good eating could last…

The next best thing to fresh is FruitFast.  Capturing this goodness is what we do and do so well.  Since we are coming off an extended growing season, there’s a bumper crop of cherries, apples, raspberries, cranberries and blueberries.  So, there is no excuse not to be enjoying the harvest and eating those fruits and veggies for a healthy diet.

FruitFast’s Juice Stimulus pricing remains in effect on our top selling juice concentrates -  Tart Cherry, Wild Blueberry, Red Raspberry and Cranberry.   Plus this month, we are introducing the amazing Great Lakes Cranberry Softgel at a special savings, too, of just $15.95 a bottle.

Food prices are dropping, as reported by the US Department of Agriculture this week, and we are delighted to bring our customers top quality fruit products that are affordable and healthy for good nutritious eating anytime of year.

I’ll be waiting to hear from you – call me Toll Free at 1-877-591-3101.