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