Perhaps, the pineapple is the only available edible bromeliad today. This multiple fruit is actually made up of dozens of individual floweret’s that grow together to form the entire fruit. Each scale on a pineapple is evidence of a separate flower.
Not too many know that the minute it is picked, it stops ripening. There is no special way of storing pineapple to help ripen it further.
Color is relatively unimportant in determining ripeness. Experts suggest that you determine it by smell. If it smells fresh, tropical and sweet, it will be a good fruit. The more scales on the pineapple, the sweeter and juicier the taste.
Pineapple is not only sweet and tropical; it also offers many benefits to our health. In her book, Food Remedies, Florence Daniel mentioned pineapple juice as the specific remedy for diphtheria. The sour, unripe fruit improves digestion, increases appetite and relieves dyspepsia.
In Indian herbal medicine, pineapple is thought to act as a uterine tonic. The ripe fruit cools and soothes, and is used to settle gas and reduce excessive, gastric acid. Its significant fiber content makes it useful in constipation. The juice of the ripe fruit is both a digestive tonic and a diuretic. The leaves are considered to be useful in encouraging the onset of menstrual periods and easing painful ones.
Another benefit of eating pineapple is that it helps to build healthy bones. Pineapples are rich in manganese, a trace mineral that is needed for your body to build bone and connective tissues.
According to scientific reports, the juice from this tropical fruit has efficient effect and relieves cough. The results of a medical study showed that pineapple extract is five times more efficient in reducing the mucus compared to the syrups sold in pharmacies, and patients recover almost five times faster.
Throughout all this history, the pineapple was valued strictly as a table delicacy. All but forgotten were the early explorers’ intriguing observations that Indians had used pineapple poultices to reduce inflammation in wounds and other skin injuries.
Then, in 1891 an enzyme called bromelain was isolated from the flesh of the pineapple and was discovered to be proteolytic—that is, it breaks down protein. Hence it is a natural meat tenderizer (the pineapple rings atop a baked ham are not there just for the flavor) and a digestive aid. It can also break down blood clots—proteins are what hold blood platelets together to form clots—and clean away the dead tissue left by burns, abscesses, ulcers and various kinds of surgery.
Bromelain also has proved effective in killing parasites such as worms. In Germany, bromelain is approved as a post-injury medication because it is thought to reduce inflammation and swelling.
Studies have shown that bromelain in pineapples can interfere with the preparation of some foods, such as jelly or other gelatin-based desserts. The bromelain breaks down in the canning process, thus canned pineapple can generally be used with gelatin.
Just a word of warning: Bromelain can be hazardous to someone suffering from certain protein deficiencies or disorders, such as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Pineapples should also not be consumed by those with hemophilia or by those with kidney or liver disease, as it may reduce the time taken to coagulate a consumer’s blood.
When unripe, the pineapple is not only inedible but poisonous, irritating the throat and acting as a drastic purgative. Excessive consumption of pineapple cores has caused the formation of fiber balls (bezoars) in the digestive tract.
Women who want to get pregnant should not eat pineapple. In some parts of the world, the flesh of very young fruits is deliberately ingested to achieve abortion (a little with honey on three successive mornings).
There are several other uses of pineapple. In Africa, young, tender shoots are eaten in salads. The terminal bud or “cabbage” and the inflorescences are eaten raw or cooked. Young shoots, called hijos de piña, are sold on vegetable markets in Guatemala.
Pineapple crowns are sometimes fed to horses if not needed for planting. Final pineapple waste from the processing factories may be dehydrated as “bran” and fed to cattle, pigs and chickens. Expendable plants from old fields can be processed as silage for maintaining cattle when other feed is scarce. The silage is low in protein and high in fiber and is best mixed with urea, molasses and water to improve its nutritional value.
Meanwhile, pineapple leaves yield a strong, white, silky fiber. Chinese people in Kwantgung Province and on the island of Hainan weave the fiber into coarse textiles resembling grass cloth. In India, the thread is prized by shoemakers. In the Philippines, piña cloth is highly esteemed. In Taiwan, pineapples also make a coarse cloth for farmers’ underwear.
By the way, the pineapple fruit with crown intact is often used as a decoration and there are variegated forms of the plant universally grown for their showiness indoors or out. Since 1963, thousands of potted, ethylene treated pineapple plants with fruits have been shipped annually from southern Florida to northern cities in the US as indoor ornamentals.
Pineapple is believed to have originated from Brazil, where tribal peoples have always regarded pineapple highly and have used it as a staple food and as an ingredient in some wines. When early explorers brought the pineapple back to Europe, its sweetness and unusual appearance made the fruit a symbol of royal privilege.
Being popular in Europe, the Spaniards (who carved pineapples over doorways) brought the fruit to the Philippines, where it has become naturalized since then. Today, the Philippines is one of the world’s leading pineapple exporters.
The English word “pineapple” was first recorded in 1398, when it was originally used to describe the reproductive organs of conifer trees (now termed pine cones). The term “pine cone” for the reproductive organ of conifer trees was first recorded in 1694.
In the scientific binomial Ananas comosus, “ananas,” the original name of the fruit, comes from the Tupi word “nanas”, meaning “excellent fruit,” as recorded by André Thevet in 1555, and comosus, “tufted,” refers to the stem of the fruit.
1 comment
Pineapple, is a good interference to emotions and intellectual reasons that human beings could heave for relaxation.