ABSTRACT
Aronia grows wild from southern Labrador and coastal Maine west through the Great Lakes to Wisconsin and south in the Appalachians to Alabama. Aronia juice is considered to be healthful, and its piquant taste makes it commercially attractive, at least when combined with other juices. Aronia is inferior in taste to familiar popular bush fruits such as blueberry. Aronia is naturally adapted to cold climates and so constitutes an excellent candidate for increased cultivation in colder areas of the world. Raw aronia fruits are generally too puckery, sour, and strong in taste and are usually combined with other berries such as blueberries and black currants. Wild fruits can be collected and stewed or made into jelly. Aronia extracts are now widely used as red color for foods. Prominent in the extracts are anthocy-anins, a subclass of flavonoids.
