The pineapple is an attractive fruit growing on a four foot high plant. Don't you just want to grab it and bring it home?
A Special Enzyme in This Unique Food Has Profound Health Benefits
Although only four feet high, the pineapple plant grows a powerful fruit. This tropical plant, native to South America but now found in warm places around the world, blooms with red or purple flowers. The many small flowers meld together as they produce fruit. So a large pineapple is really a fusion of many smaller berries around a central stalk.
Bromelain is an enzyme that distinguishes pineapples from all other fruits. This enzyme, which your body can absorb intact, has unique and powerful effects to support your health. Pineapple is a special piece of the puzzle in putting together your ideal whole foods, plant-based diet.
To reap the advantages of bromelain, be sure to eat pineapple raw. Cooking or canning destroys this enzyme. An electric knife makes cutting whole pineapple a breeze, or you can buy fresh fruit that is already cut into chunks.
For more bromelain, eat the whole pineapple (minus the skin and leaves). The tougher circle of cells at the center of these fruits (which is actually the central stalk or stem) has more concentrated bromelain than the surrounding tender fruit has.
You can cut the stalk into small pieces or put it into a smoothie where it will be ground up. If you just (more…)
