The Healing Benefits of Pineapple
Fruit for Thought: Pineapple
The Pineapple* (Ananas Comosus*) is a tropical plant with edible fruit. It has a bright yellow fibrous inner flesh that is naturally very sweet and best when ripe. Its aroma is pleasant, and the juice thirst quenching. Pineapple does not ripen well post-harvest, and it is available year-round.
**Botanical name:
**Ananas comosus, the most economically significant plant in the Bromeliaceae family.
**Native to:
**The plant is indigenous to South America and is said to originate from the area between Southern Brazil and Paraguay. Columbus encountered the pineapple in 1493 on the Leeward island of Guadeloupe. He called it piña de Indias, meaning “pine of the Indians,” and brought it back with him to Europe, thus making the pineapple the first bromeliad to leave the New World. Many say the fruit was first introduced in Hawaii when a Spanish ship brought them there in the 1500s. The fruit was cultivated successfully in European hothouses beginning in 1720.
Healing Benefits:
As a very subtle healer of many body ailments, below is a list of some of the benefits of pineapple:
- Its most essential ingredient is bromelain, a natural anti-inflammatory and painkiller. In the upper respiratory tract, bromelain fights bronchitis and sinusitis. Bromelain is effective in healing stomach ulcers and repairing body tissues.
- Pineapple juice contains natural collagen which boosts the immune system.
- Damaged, chapped or burnt skin can be reconditioned by drinking pineapple juice.
- Pineapple contains detoxifying elements and chemicals that stimulate kidney functions.
- Helpful in treating bruises, cuts, muscle pain, arthritis, joint pain, sprains, and back pain. Pineapple has proven to positively supplement recovery from knee injury, reduce fever, body wrinkles, and aid digestion.
- Consuming pineapple often drastically reduces recovery after surgery.
- Excellent antidote for cardio-vascular disease due to its ability to break-down cholesterol compounds.
**CAUTION:
**Children should not eat it in excess as it can cause gingivitis in children.
Recipe: Spiced Tropical Fruit Compote
Makes: 6 servings, 2/3 cup each Active Time: 20 minutes Total Time: 50 minutes
Whole spices give a subtle but distinct flavor to this tropical fruit compote. Here the fruit is not cooked in the syrup, but simply macerated so that the taste remains fresh and distinct. The spiced syrup is also a wonderful sweetener for hot tea or as a base for a veggie-stir-fry.
**Ingredients: **
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup fresh pineapple juice
1 teaspoon freshly grated lime zest
1/4 cup lime juice, (2 limes)
10 whole cardamom pods
8 whole allspice berries
8 whole black peppercorns
8 whole cloves
2 cinnamon sticks, broken in half
3 kiwi, peeled and sliced
2 mangoes or papayas, peeled, seeded and cut into chunks
2 seedless tangerines or small oranges, peeled and sliced
2 star fruit (carambolas), thinly sliced
1 cup fresh pineapple chunks
1 banana, peeled and cut into thick slices
Directions:
- Combine sugar, pineapple juice, lime zest and juice in a small saucepan.
- Tie the spices in a small cheesecloth bag and add it to the saucepan.
- Bring the liquid to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
- Cover the pan, reduce the heat to low and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool.
- Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 24 hours.
- Toss all the fruit in a serving bowl.
- Add syrup and stir gently.
- Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Remove spice bag and serve.
About the Author
Tualang Honey; A Gift From the Jungle
What is Tualang Honey?
A honey from the Malaysian jungles is attracting attention from researchers who are finding it has unexpected health properties beyond those of the famous Manuka honey of Australia and New Zealand.
While it has been used as medicine and food for thousands of years, researchers are confirming the therapeutic value of honey — accelerated wound healing, infection fighting, anti-tumor, and anti-diabetic properties, to name a few.
When a pollen-producing plant species has health or curative properties, those characteristics transfer to honey via the pollen harvested by bees. Until recently, Manuka honey from New Zealand has been the gold standard, with higher levels of methylglyoxal, a natural antibacterial, than other types of raw honey. By placing hives into Manuka groves, beekeepers produce and harvest this “monofloral” honey, meaning the hive worker bees have harvested pollen only from the Manuka tree blossoms, which gives the honey it’s unusual therapeutic properties.
Tualang honey is produced by the rock bee (Apis dorsata), a type of honeybee, that builds its colonies in one of the tallest trees in the world, the Tualang tree of Southeast Asia, and in particular, the Malaysian peninsula. Specimens as high as 260 ft. (80m) have been recorded. The species is found in lowland forests — indigenous people believe the giant trees are inhabited by spirits. This belief has spared the trees from the logging industry. Tualang honey is only found in these jungle giants — the tree’s smooth bark makes climbing difficult for honey loving predators like the sun bear.
The honey-loving Malaysian Sun Bear
Honey can be monofloral or polyfloral. Manuka is monofloral, with the Manuka tree species as the pollen source. Polyfloral Tualang honey differs in that the rock bees pollinate diverse Malaysian jungle plants and flowers, and those plant properties find their way in to the honey. The therapeutic potential of multiple rainforest plant species are captured in Tualang honey.
