Organic Pitted Cherries from Columbia Gorge Food Review

Having never sampled canned organic cherries, after reading on a can of cherries they were already pitted, and since the price was right, only $3.99 for 15.5 oz (about the same price or cheaper than even non-organic fresh or canned, in water, cherries), I picked a can of Columbia Gorge Certified Organic Pitted Cherries Packed in Organic Pear Juice from the shelf of Whole Foods in Union Square, NYC. The decision to purchase them was kind of a big deal, since prudence is high on my list of desirable traits; and I'm almost completely convinced no fresh cherries, much less canned cherries, taste as good as Mt. Rainier Bing cherries (See Rainier Fruit Company Sweet Organic Bing Cherries Review ).

Besides, I was looking for some fruit to add to the plain lowfat Stonyfield yogurt I'm now purchasing instead of the other Stonyfield offerings; albeit not high fructose corn syrup, many yogurts, even Stonyfield organic yogurts, are overflowing with sugar. On average, each serving of yogurt has about 30 grams of sugar per serving, which is not much less than the 38 grams of sugar, or the equivalent of 15 tablespoons of sugar, a can of Coca-Cola has in it. When including sugar in your diet, you may as well get truer to natural proportions of it from organic fruits, right!

Organic Pitted Cherries Packed in Organic Pear Juice by Columbia Gorge ( Taste)

As surprising as it was to me, these canned organic cherries, which by the way were from the Hood River area of Oregon, tasted much better than I imagined they would. Not only the cherries, but the organic pear juice itself was quite tasty too. The can only describes the cherries as "dark, sweet pitted (organic) cherries," and the pear juice as "(organic) pear concentrate." So I went to the website of Columbia Gorge Organic to see if I could pick out which cherries and pears were used.

Columbia Gorge Organic website lists Bing, Sweet Hearts, Skeena, Vans, Sams, and Lapin-and even Rainier-as its organic sweet cherry varieties, but nowhere does it specify which organic cherries are canned; neither does it list which organic pears are used for juice concentrate.

Upon emailing Columbia Gorge, Cheryl Stewart kindly let me know the organic cherries that used to get canned were either of the Lambert, Bing, Van or Sam variety; and the organic pear juice concentrate was from the D'Anjou pear. The Stewart Family lets its customers know that every effort is made to ensure no pits or fragments remain in its pitted cherries; nary a fragment did I find.

Recently, Columbia Gorge has chosen to get out of the business of canning fruits and they're focusing on providing organic juices, which aren't from concentrate or reconstituted, I might add! I look forward to reviewing several Columbia Gorge Juice Blends, once they make it to the East Coast markets later this year.

Sources:

Columbia Gorge Organic, http://www.cogojuice.com/index.php/home/

Stonyfield Organic, http://www.stonyfield.com/

Cherry Pop, Wild Cherries and Rainier Fruit Company Sweet Organic Bing Cherries, T. H. Pankey, http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2095243/cherry_pop_wild_cherries_and_rainier.html?cat=22