Raspberries Are Related To This Fragrant Flower

If you're looking for a healthy snack or a nutritious complement to balance out your breakfast, it's hard to do much better than raspberries.

They offer a number of health benefits, including providing more than 50% of your recommended daily target for Vitamin C. They are also high in fiber and chock full of antioxidants which can help lower inflammation and reduce the risk of chronic conditions such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity. Additionally, they are low in sugar, clocking in at just 5 grams per cup. Meanwhile, that apple a day that supposedly keeps the doctor away is loaded with 20 grams of sugar (for one medium-sized fruit).

What might surprise you, though, is that this nutritious, vitamin-packed fruit is actually a member of the rose family, according to EatFirst. And it's not alone. Other popular fruits related to this sweet-smelling fragrant flower of romantic lore include cherries, pears, peaches, blackberries, strawberries, plums, and the aforementioned apples.

Flowers in the rose family (Rosaceae, which numbers around 3,000 species) often have a cup-like shape with five petals. Many produce the fleshy fruits we associate with the list above.

Should you be lucky enough to live in an area where you can forage for wild raspberries or pick some at a local farm, be vigilant of what state the fruit is in when you pluck it from the plant. They don't ripen once picked, something that sets them apart from many other fruit varieties (via EatFirst).

Once you have collected your raspberries, you might need a little culinary inspiration on how to incorporate them into your cooking. Country Living shares 45 different ways to use them creatively in your kitchen, from concocting refreshing beverages like basil-raspberry lemonade to baking sinful desserts such as raspberry pink velvet cake with raspberry cream cheese frosting. As William Shakespeare once wrote, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."