Fruit Leather

Name: Fruit leather — pureed fruit, spread thinly and dried into a chewy sheet, then cut or rolled. It may be homemade from a single fruit, or a commercial product made from fruit puree, sugar and other ingredients. Related foods include apricot leather, known in Arabic as amardeen, and Turkish pestil.

Description

Fruit leather is an old way of preserving a fruit harvest by drying puree in the sun. In the Middle East, sheets of dried apricot paste called amardeen have long been made and are especially associated with Damascus and the month of Ramadan, where they are dissolved in water to make a sweet drink. In Turkey, dried fruit and grape-must sheets called pestil are made in a similar way.

Today, fruit leather is also an industrial snack sold in rolls and strips, often to children. Homemade versions are made from fruit puree dried in a low oven or dehydrator. Commercial products vary widely: some are almost entirely fruit, while others contain a good deal of added sugar, sweeteners, colours and flavourings.

Main nutrition value

Fruit leather is a concentrated source of fruit sugars and energy, but contains little of the fibre of whole fruit, and nutrients vary by brand and fruit used.

How best to be consumed

Fruit leather is a sweet treat rather than a replacement for fresh fruit.

1. Make your own from pureed fruit with no added sugar, dried in a low oven or dehydrator.
2. Read the label and pick products with fruit as the first ingredient and little added sugar.
3. Treat as an occasional snack alongside, not instead of, whole fruit.
4. Dissolve apricot leather in water to make traditional amardeen drinks.
5. Rinse or brush teeth after eating, since it clings.

Overconsumption could cause…

Fruit leather is very concentrated and often sticky and sugary, so it deserves a little care.

1. High sugar intake, especially from commercial products with added sugar or syrups.
2. Tooth decay, since it sticks to teeth for a long time.
3. Less fullness than whole fruit, since fibre is lost in processing, so it is easy to overeat.
4. A possible choking risk for very young children, and reactions to additives or colours in some products.

GroupsDried FruitsLow fatRich in vitamin CDried

Related foodsDried Goji BerriesDried CherriesDried MangoDried BlueberriesCurrantsDried Longan

Wikipedia — Fruit leather, used for origin, naming and history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_leather Wikipedia — Dried fruit, used for general background on drying and storing fruit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dried_fruit