Pineapple

Pineapples have exceptional juiciness and a vibrant tropical flavor that balances the tastes of sweet and tart. They are second only to bananas as America's favorite tropical fruit. Although the season for pineapple runs from March through June, they are available year-round in local markets.

Pineapples are a composite of many flowers whose individual fruitlets fuse together around a central core. Each fruitlet can be identified by an "eye," the rough spiny marking on the pineapple's surface. Pineapples have a wide cylindrical shape, a scaly green, brown or yellow skin and a regal crown of spiny, blue-green leaves and fibrous yellow flesh. The area closer to the base of the fruit has more sugar content and therefore a sweeter taste and more tender texture.

 A Few Quick Serving Ideas:

• Combine diced pineapple with chopped shrimp, grated ginger and a little olive oil. Season to taste and serve this fragrant shrimp salad on a bed of romaine lettuce.
• Mix diced pineapple and chili peppers for an easy to prepare salsa that's an exceptional complement to fish such as halibut, tuna and salmon.
• Drizzle maple syrup on pineapple slices and broil until brown. Serve plain or with yogurt.
• Chopped pineapple, grated fennel and cashews go well together and are especially delicious as a side dish to chicken.
• Pineapple is a wonderful addition to fruit salads, especially those containing other tropical fruits such as papaya, kiwi and mango.
• Cut fruit, if chilled, retains many of its nutrients for at least 6 days.
• Everyone loves colorful, delicious fresh fruit salad, plus it's a perfect addition to any meal and makes a great snack or dessert. So why don't we enjoy fresh fruit salad more? Simply because it's been thought that cut fruit rapidly degrades, so fruit salad, which can take 15 minutes to prepare, would have to be freshly prepared to be good.
• Now, a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry has found that minimal processing of fruit—cutting, packaging and chilling—does not significantly affect its nutritional content even after 6, and up to 9, days.
• In practical terms, this means that you can prepare a large bowl of fruit salad on the weekend, store it in the refrigerator, and enjoy it all week, receiving almost all the nutritional benefits of just prepared fruit salad.
• If you're really pressed for time, packaged cut up fresh fruit, although more expensive, is a nutritionally sound option.
• In this study, researchers cut up pineapples, mangoes, cantaloupes, watermelons, strawberries and kiwi fruit. The freshly cut fruits were then rinsed in water, dried, packaged in clamshells (not gastight) and stored at 41°F (5°C).
• After 6 days, losses in vitamin C were less than 5% in mango, strawberry, and watermelon pieces, 10% in pineapple pieces, 12% in kiwifruit slices, and 25% in cantaloupe cubes.
• No losses in carotenoids were found in kiwifruit slices and watermelon cubes. Cantaloupe, mango, and strawberry pieces lost 10-15%; pineapples lost 25%, although this is not of much concern since they are not usually consumed for their carotenoid content since this is not one of the nutrients in which they are most concentrated.
• No significant losses in phenolic phytonutrients were found in any of the fresh-cut fruit products. "Contrary to expectations, it was clear that minimal processing had almost no effect on the main antioxidant constituents. The changes in nutrient antioxidants observed during nine days at five degrees Celsius would not significantly affect the nutrient quality of fresh cut fruit. In general, fresh-cut fruits visually spoil before any significant nutrient loss occurs," wrote lead researcher Maria Gil

Wonderful health benefits of Pomegranate

Did you know that it's juice is so packed with antioxidants for optimal health, that it…

• may help significantly in reducing the symptoms of arthritis?
• is proven to boost fertility, increase your immunity against diseases like swine flu, and prevent many types of cancer?

In fact the fruit and juice is recognized to be a key to preventing the horrible terminal diseases that have yet to be eliminated like leukemia, breast cancer, and prostate cancer.

Bet you didn't know these amazing facts about it's fruit and juice!

Scientists and researchers are fascinated with this incredibly healthy and beneficial fruit! There is ongoing research into how this softball sized fruit can be used to it’s greatest potential to prevent heart disease, lower high blood pressure, and much more!

Guess what else?

• The fruit and juice are bursting with the most powerful antioxidants of any other fruit or juice!
• The fruit and juice could lower your high blood pressure and cholesterol levels!
• This fruit is safe and healthy for your heart!
• The fruit and its juice may prevent a stroke!
• It shines light into the darkness of Alzheimer’s disease!
• It's natural sugars could also be something sweet and safe for diabetics!
• It may help in the area of hot flashes, menopause and bone loss!
• This juice is even important for strong teeth!
• You can easily make delicious fresh-squeezed juice in your own kitchen!
• The fruit and juice are delicious additions to all your recipes!

You’ll want to know more about how you can benefit from them when you find out the facts!

Did you know that they…

• are one of the only fruits that may keep your skin looking young and wrinkle free if you eat them regularly?

Who doesn’t want to look younger and enjoy smooth beautiful skin, especially in the golden years? Everyone will think you’re ten years younger than you really are and you won’t have to worry about resorting to unsafe products for your skin.

Here is another juicy tidbit for you. Did you know that pomegranates....

• are delicious, tangy, and light up your taste buds when you eat them?
• have an unmistakably perfumed and yummy taste?

These amazing little seeds, or arils as they are also called, are perfectly suited for juicing or eating whole on salads, yogurt, or as a topping on any other food you love.

What's New and Beneficial About Apple

• The phytonutrients in apples can help you regulate your blood sugar. Recent research has shown that apple polyphenols can help prevent spikes in blood sugar through a variety of mechanisms. Flavonoids like quercetin found in apples can inhibit enzymes like alpha-amylase and alpha-glucosidase. Since these enzymes are involved in the breakdown of complex carbohydrates into simple sugars, your blood sugar has fewer simple sugars to deal with when these enzymes are inhibited. In addition, the polyphenols in apple have been shown to lessen absorption of glucose from the digestive tract; to stimulate the beta cells of the pancreas to secrete insulin; and to increase uptake of glucose from the blood via stimulation of insulin receptors. All of these mechanisms triggered by apple polyphenols can make it easier for you to regulate your blood sugar.
• Even though apple is not an excellent source of dietary fiber (it ranks as a "good" source in our WHFoods Rating System), the fiber found in apple may combine with other apple nutrients to provide you with the kind of health benefits you would ordinarily only associate with much higher amounts of dietary fiber. These health benefits are particularly important in prevention of heart disease through healthy regulation of blood fat levels. Recent research has shown that intake of apples in their whole food form can significantly lower many of our blood fats. The fat-lowering effects of apple have traditionally been associated with its soluble fiber content, and in particular, with its fat-soluble fiber called pectin. What we now know, however, is that whole apples only contain approximately 2-3 grams of fiber per 3.5 ounces, and that pectin accounts for less than 50% of this total fiber. Nevertheless, this relatively modest amount of pectin found in whole apples has now been shown to interact with other apple phytonutrients to give us the kind of blood fat lowering effects that would typically be associated with much higher amounts of soluble fiber intake. In recent comparisons with laboratory animals, the blood fat lowering effects of whole apple were shown to be greatly reduced when whole apples were eliminated from the diet and replaced by pectin alone. In summary, it's not fiber alone that explains the cardiovascular benefits of apple, but the interaction of fiber with other phytonutrients in this wonderful fruit. If you want the full cardiovascular benefits of apples, it's the whole food form that you'll want to choose. Only this form can provide you with those unique fiber-plus-phytonutrient combinations.
• The whole food form of apples is also important if you want full satisfaction from eating them. Researchers have recently compared intake of whole apples to intake of applesauce and apple juice, only to discover that people report less hunger (and better satiety, or food satisfaction) after eating whole apples than after eating applesauce or drinking apple juice. But especially interesting was an additional finding about calorie intake following apple consumption. When healthy adults consumed one medium-sized apple approximately 15 minutes before a meal, their caloric intake at that meal decreased by an average of 15%. Since meals in this study averaged 1,240 calories, a reduction of 15% meant a reduction of 186 calories, or about 60 more calories than contained in a medium apple. For these researchers, "getting ahead" in calories with a net reduction of 60 calories was a welcomed outcome of the study, and an extra benefit to their study's primary conclusionâ€"the importance of whole apples (versus other more processed apple forms) in helping us manage our hunger and feeling more satisfied with our food.
• Scientists have recently shown that important health benefits of apples may stem from their impact on bacteria in the digestive tract. In studies on laboratory animals, intake of apples is now known to significantly alter amounts of two bacteria (Clostridiales and Bacteriodes) in the large intestine. As a result of these bacterial changes, metabolism in the large intestine is also changed, and many of these changes appear to provide health benefits. For example, due to bacterial changes in the large intestine, there appears to be more fuel available to the large intestine cells (in the form of butyric acid) after apple is consumed. We expect to see future studies confirming these results in humans, and we are excited to think about potential health benefits of apple that will be related to its impact on bacterial balance in our digestive tract.

Tomato

• Did you know that tomatoes do not have to be a deep red color to be an outstanding source of lycopene? Lycopene is a carotenoid pigment that has long been associated with the deep red color of many tomatoes. A small preliminary study on healthy men and women has shown that the lycopene from orange- and tangerine-colored tomatoes may actually be better absorbed than the lycopene from red tomatoes. That's because the lycopene in deep red tomatoes is mostly trans-lycopene, and the lycopene in orange/tangerine tomatoes is mostly tetra-cis-lycopene. In a recent study, this tetra-cis form of lycopene turned out to be more efficiently absorbed by the study participants. While more research is needed in this area, we're encouraged to find that tomatoes may not have to be deep red in order for us to get great lycopene-related benefits.
• Tomatoes are widely known for their outstanding antioxidant content, including, of course, their oftentimes-rich concentration of lycopene. Researchers have recently found an important connection between lycopene, its antioxidant properties, and bone health. A study was designed in which tomato and other dietary sources of lycopene were removed from the diets of postmenopausal women for a period of 4 weeks, to see what effect lycopene restriction would have on bone health. At the end of 4 weeks, women in the study started to show increased signs of oxidative stress in their bones and unwanted changes in their bone tissue. The study investigators concluded that removal of lycopene-containing foods (including tomatoes) from the diet was likely to put women at increased risk of osteoporosis. They also argued for the importance of tomatoes and other lycopene-containing foods in the diet. We don't always think about antioxidant protection as being important for bone health, but it is, and tomato lycopene (and other tomato antioxidants) may have a special role to play in this area.
• There are literally hundreds of different tomato varieties. We usually choose our favorite varieties by some combination of flavor, texture, and appearance. But a recent study has shown that we may also want to include antioxidant capacity as a factor when we are choosing among tomato varieties. Surprisingly, researchers who compared conventionally grown versus organically grown tomatoes found that growing method (conventional versus organic) made less of an overall difference than variety of tomato. While all tomatoes showed good antioxidant capacity, and while the differences were not huge, the following four varieties of tomatoes turned out to have a higher average antioxidant capacity regardless of whether they were grown conventionally or organically: New Girl, Jet Star, Fantastic, and First Lady. It's only one study, of course, and we're definitely not ready to recommend these four varieties at the exclusion of all others. But these findings are fascinating to us, and they suggest that specific types of nutrient benefits may be provided by specific varieties of tomatoes. Also, if you're seeking good antioxidant protection and you're in the grocery standing in front of a New Girl, Jet Star, Fantastic, or First Lady tomato, you would probably be well-served to place it in your shopping cart.
• Intake of tomatoes has long been linked to heart health. Fresh tomatoes and tomato extracts have been shown to help lower total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides. In addition, tomato extracts have been shown to help prevent unwanted clumping together (aggregation) of platelet cells in the blood - a factor that is especially important in lowering risk of heart problems like atherosclerosis. (In a recent South American study of 26 vegetables, tomatoes and green beans came out best in their anti-aggregation properties.) But only recently are researchers beginning to identify some of the more unusual phytonutrients in tomatoes that help provide us with these heart-protective benefits. One of these phytonutrients is a glycoside called esculeoside A; another is flavonoid called chalconaringenin; and yet another is a fatty-acid type molecule called 9-oxo-octadecadienoic acid. As our knowledge of unique tomato phytonutrients expands, we are likely to learn more about the unique role played by tomatoes in support of heart health. Tomatoes are also likely to rise further and further toward the top of the list as heart healthy foods.

Prebiotics

Prebiotics are  defined as “selectively fermented  ingredients that allow specific changes, both in the composition and or activity in the gastrointestinal microflora that confer benefits upon host well-being and health [Roberfroid 2007]. Prebiotics are also defined as non-digestible to low-digestible food ingredients that benefit the host organism by selectively stimulating the growth or activity of one or more than but limited number of probiotic bacteria in the colon (Crittenden & Playne, 1996; Dimer & Gibson, 1998; Zimmer & Gibson, 1998; Manning & Gibson, 2004). This role is played by Fermentable carbohydrates, which are not digested or poorly digested in the small intestine and stimulate, preferentially, the growth of bifidobacteria and some Gram-positive bacteria, belonging to the probiotic bacteria administered to humans play this role. Complex carbohydrates traverse through the small intestine to the lower gut where they become available for some colonic bacteria but are utilized by only certain microbial types out of the majority of the bacteria present in the colon. Lactulose, galactooligosaccharides (GOS), Fructooligosaccharides (FOS), inulin and its hydrolysates, maltooligosaccharides, and resistant starch are the prebiotics commonly used in human nutrition. The main end products of carbohydrate metabolism by the way of fermentation by enzymes of Probiotic origin are short-chained fatty acids, namely acetate, butyrate and propionate, which are further used by the host organism as an energy source. In practice, the most common oligosaccharides are inulin and its hydrolysates and oligofructans.

The majority of studies have so far focused on inulin, FOS and GOS [Macfarlane et al., 2006;  Macfarlane et al. 2008]. These saccharides have now a long history of safe use and are generally regarded as safe, although there is some concern over increased gas production with some compounds, particularly when ingested in higher amounts or during the first few days of intake. They can be found in chicory, topinambuco, onion, garlic, asparagus, artichoke, leek, bananas, tomatos and many other plants.

Prebiotic oligosaccharides can be produced in three different ways: by extraction from plant materials, microbiological synthesis or enzymatic synthesis, as well as by enzymatic hydrolysis of polysaccharides (Crittenden & Playne, 1996; Gulewicz et al., 2003). In practice, combined mixtures of probiotics and prebiotics are often used because their synergic effects are conferred onto food products. For this reason, such mixtures are called synbiotics. In conclusion,  prebiotics are dietary substances (mostly consisting of nonstarch polysaccharides and oligosaccharides poorly digested by human enzymes) that nurture a selected group of microorganisms living in the gut. They favor the growth of beneficial bacteria over that of harmful ones.