Persimmon may sound like a lovelorn heroine from a Jane Austen novel, but it’s actually far more auspicious than that. According to Israeli researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, this tasty fruit packs twice the antioxidants and double the amount of fiber of a fresh apple. And it’s fiber that helps lower cholesterol, fights atherosclerosis, and speeds fat through your gut. In fact, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that people who ate high-fiber diets over a 10-year period gained less weight than subjects who didn’t, regardless of how much fiat they ate.
