Pineapple

Pineapple
  • The pineapple plant’s flowers which can vary from lavender to bright red, produce berries that actually coalesce together around the fruit’s core. So the pineapple fruit itself is actually a bunch of “fruitlets” fused together.
  • A Pineapples take about 18 months to grow.
  • One cup of pineapple juice has about 135 calories and 33% of the RDA of Vitamin C.
  • A pineapple is ripe if one of its top leaves can easily be pulled out.
  • Once harvested, pineapples don’t continue to ripen.That means that every single pineapple in the grocery store is as ripe as it will ever be. So, don’t buy one and save it for a week, thinking it will ripen. A green pineapple can be just as sweet and delicious as a golden brown one.
  • Although the fruit originated in South America, the majority of the world’s pineapples now come from Southeast Asia – namely the Philippines and Thailand.
  • The pineapple canning industry uses the skin and the core of a Pineapple for making alcohol, vinegar and animal feed.
  • Each pineapple plant only produces just one pineapple per year.
  • Unripe pineapples don’t just taste vile, but can actually be quite poisonous. Eating it causes serious throat irritation and it has a strong laxative effect.
  • Pineapples grow slowly, and can take up to two years to reach full size, so we pick and eat them when they are much smaller. But if they are left to their own devices they can grow a lot bigger. The world record is currently 8.28kg.
  • If you want to speed up the ripening of a pineapple, then you can do it by standing it upside down.
  • Traditionally pineapple juice was used as a diuretic and to induce labour.
  • Fresh Pineapples cannot be put in jelly because the Bromelain enzyme breaks down the gelatine. The solution is, boiling the chunks of pineapple in their juice or in water for a few minutes, or use canned pineapple.
  • The pineapple is native to Brazil and Paraguay.
  • The first written record of the word “pineapple” in English was in 1398 and it was used to refer to a pine cone. It comes from the Spanish word for pine cone, “piña.”
  • After Columbus introduced them to Spain, pineapples became popular among sailors as protection against scurvy.
  • Del Monte began producing pineapples in Oahu in 1917.