Healthy Fruit or Vegetable of the Week
Benefits of Pineapple:
Adding fresh pineapple or pineapple juice to your diet can improve your health and boost your body's natural ability to heal itself. Pineapples contain vitamins, fiber, minerals and enzymes, which aid in digestion and help the body maintain a balanced nutrition.
Pineapple contains bromelain, a mixture of enzymes. Bromelain helps break down the amino acid bonds in proteins, which helps with proper digestion. Pineapples provide the body with a large supply of Vitamin C, which is a comon antioxidant that boosts the immune system, helps build and repair body tissue and promotes the healing of wounds. Vitamin C also helps the body metabolize fat and cholesterol, absorb iron, and build bone and tissue.
Pineapple is also a good source of vitamin B1, copper, vitamin B6 and fiber, as well as the trace mineral manganese, which all help with energy production, metabolism and blood circulation.
So, when in doubt, go for the pineapple.
Tips:
To help reduce inflammation, eat pineapple in between meals. If you eat pineapple during of immediately following meals, the enzymes contained in the fruit will be used for digesting food instead.
Make sure to choose fresh pineapple instead of the canned version. As a result of the heat used in the canning process, most of the bromelain enzyme in canned pineapple is detroyed, lessening the benefits of the fruit.
