Research shows that drinking a glass of cherry juice a day offers the same health benefits as 23 portions of fruit and vegetables.

The catch is that it only applies to American Montmorency tart cherries.

British and European varieties only seem to contain about 20 percent of the antioxidant levels of the U.S. fruit — however, the juice can be bought in the UK in health food stores, under the name of CherryActive.

The research by Dr Robert Verkerk, compared the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) of 25ml of diluted cherry juice concentrate with various fruits and vegetables. The result was an overwhelming thumbs-up for the cherries.

A leading British nutritionist, Patrick Holford said, “A recent BBC2 Horizon documentary showed the longest-living people in the world all achieve a very high intake of antioxidants, measured as over 6,000 ORAC units a day.”

One glass of Montmorency cherry juice contains 8,260 units.

Life really is a bowl of cherries, it seems.