May 2, 2018
Pineapple
One of our favorite fruits is the pineapple.
The best of the best is fresh cut. (We will get them straight off our bushes someday!)
Pineapple is great with pork, in oriental dishes, on pizza, in a cake, in muffins, or just plain and juicy sweet.
Up until a few months ago, I’d never cut a fresh pineapple! It’s really easy if your kids are like mine and want to eat as close to the rind as possible. My mom cuts the rind off and then dices the meat for a no-mess-later snack.
You cut off the top. (Be sure to leave a little meat so you can plant the top in a sunny spot and a year later you’ll have more pineapples!)
You cut off the base. (My kids call it the butt because the pineapple sits on it.)
Now stand the pineapple up and slice through it from top to bottom in two or three cuts. I always use three because I like narrower bites for small-child mouths to make less of a mess. Lay these four or six strips flat and slice into wedges. They will look like pizza slices. The yellow pineapple meat is pretending to be the cheese and the rind is being the crust.
And voila! Easy treat to grab and eat! Our chickens love pineapple rinds. Prim always thinks she wants them when we are cutting, but that’s just because we have the cutting board out and she thinks she’s a human.
Pineapple is loaded with vitamins and minerals needed for healthy bodies. It has an enzyme called bromelain that is anti-inflammatory and helps sooth coughing too. For the calories (82 per cup), pineapple is considered nutrient dense and low sugar. One cup of fresh pineapple has about 180mg potassium, 2g dietary fiber, 0.6g protein, 0.7% Vitamin A, 40% Vitamin C, 6.7% Vitamin B6, as well as copper, iron, folate, magnesium, thiamin, niacin, and 130% daily value of manganese! (Among others, check it out!)
So, for a healthy, easy snack that tastes great, try some fresh pineapple! (Just watch out for the “burn” you can get on your lips after a few slices.)
Fun facts:
Did you know that adding a little salt to pineapple makes it taste sweeter? Just not too much!
The pineapple is technically a berry! It is formed by several flowers fruiting together at the core (the hard central “Stem” through the middle of the pineapple) and fusing together into the soft, yellow meat of a single fruit per stalk.
The core and rind are edible! The core can be too tough to eat in an unripe pineapple. The rind is traditionally used to make a fermented drink!
Thanks for reading!
Type at you next time…
~Nancy Tart