From Bog to Bowl: How Cranberries Make Their Way to Your Thanksgiving Table

One-fifth of America’s total cranberry harvest is used around one day a year: Thanksgiving. But despite their seasonal ubiquity, how much do you actually know about the tangy red berry?

In the video above, Nicole Cotroneo Jolly of the website How Does It Grow? dishes out a series of fascinating facts about cranberries. For example: they're packed with antioxidants, and were once used by Native Americans as medicine. 

Jolly also takes viewers on a tour of a cranberry farm in southern New Jersey, which has been tended by the same family for seven generations. She wades through a bog filled with floating berries, and explains how farmers help them make their way from their watery habitat to stovetops across the country each holiday season. Since only 5 percent of the nation's cranberry crops are sold as whole, fresh berries, it's fascinating to see what the tart morsels look like and how they grow before they're plucked and squashed into sauce.

[h/t The Kids Should See This, How Does It Grow?]

Header image via iStock.