Many people are yet to understand the health secrets of pineapple. What did I mean by that? Pineapple is a fruit that has great nutrients compared to other fruits. Back in the days of our fore fathers, they used fruits as food and sometimes medicine in which pineapple was less regarded because of illetracy. So in this article, I will expose to your some secrets of pineapple and how they are beneficial to your health. Before I proceed, let’s get the meaning of pineapple.
What is a pineapple?
The pineapple(Ananas comosus) is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuries. The introduction of the pineapple to Europe in the 17th century made it a significant cultural icon of luxury. Since the 1820s, pineapple has been commercially grown in greenhouses and many tropical plantations.
History of Pineapple
The wild plant originates from the Paraná–Paraguay River drainages between southern Brazil and Paraguay. Little is known about its domestication, but it spread as a crop throughout South America. Archaeological evidence of use is found as far back as 1200 – 800 BC (3200-2800 BP) in Peru and 200BC – AD700 (2200-1300 BP) in Mexico, where it was cultivated by the Mayas and the Aztecs. By the late 1400s, cropped pineapple was widely distributed and a staple food of Native Americans. The first European to encounter the pineapple was Columbus, in Guadeloupe on 4 November 1493. The Portuguese took the fruit from Brazil and introduced it into India by 1550. The ‘Red Spanish [es]’ cultivar was also introduced by the Spanish from Latin America to the Philippines, and it was grown for textile use from at least the 17th century.
Columbus brought the plant back to Spain and called it piña de Indes, meaning “pine of the Indians”. The pineapple was documented in Peter Martyr’s Decades of the New World (1516) and Antonio Pigafetta’s Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo (1524-1525), and the first known illustration was in Oviedo’s Historia General de Las Indias (1535).
English Name
The first reference in English to the pineapple fruit was the 1568 translation from the French of André Thevet’s The New Found World, or Antarctike where he refers to a Hoyriri, a fruit cultivated and eaten by the Tupinambá people, living near modern Rio de Janeiro, and now believed to be a pineapple. Later in the same English translation, he describes the same fruit as a “Nana made in the manner of a Pine apple”, where he used another Tupi word nanas, meaning ‘excellent fruit’. This usage was adopted by many European languages and led to the plant’s scientific binomial Ananas comosus, where comosus ‘tufted’, refers to the stem of the plant. Purchas, writing in English in 1613, referred to the fruit as Ananas, but the Oxford English Dictionary’s first record of the word pineapple itself by an English writer by Mandeville in 1714.
Now that we have understood the meaning of Pineapple and other thing you need to know about it, let’s head to it’s health benefits.
HIGH SEAS AND VITAMIN C
Despite its rough exterior, the pineapple is a symbol of welcome and hospitality. This dates from the 17th century, when American colonists braved dangerous trade routes to import pineapple from the Carribean Islands and share it with guests. Pineapple is also quite hospitable to your immune system. One cup has more than 100% of your daily value of cell. Protecting disease making vitamin C.
HIGH IN MANGANESE
The mineral manganese plays an essential role in the way your body metabolises food, clots blood, and keeps your bones healthy. One cup of pineapple has more than half of the manganese you need every day. This minerals is also present in whole grains, lentils and black-pepper
LOADED WITH VITAMINS AND MINERALS
In addition to the large amount of vitamin C and manganese, pineapples add to your daily value of vitamin B6, copper, thiamin, folate, potassium, manganese, ribo flavin and iron.
GOOD FOR DIGESTION
Pineapples are the only known food sources of bromine lain, a combination of enzymes that digest protein. That’s why pineapple works as a meat tenderizer. The bromine lain breaks down the protein and softens the meat. In your body , bromine lain makes it easier for you to digest food and absorb it.
ALL ABOUT ANTIOXIDANTS
When you eat, your body breaks down . This process creates molecules called free radicals. This same goes for exposure of tobacco smoke and radiation. Pineapples are rich in flavonoids and phonolic acid, two antioxidants that protects your cells from free radicals that can cause chronic disease. More studies are needed but bromine Lain has also been linked to reduce risks of cancer.
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OTHER NUTRITION
Raw pineapple pulp is 86% water, 13% carbohydrates, 0.5% protein, and contains negligible fat (table). In a 100-gram reference amount, raw pineapple supplies 209 kilojoules (50 kilocalories) of food energy, and is a rich source of manganese (44% Daily Value, DV) and vitamin C (58% DV), but otherwise contains no micronutrients in significant amounts.
