Craving a tropical fruit on a hot sunny day?  What could be better than a cool slice of sweet pineapple?!! Pineapples have an interesting appearance with their spiky tops and thick skin but underneath that intimidating demeanour lies a sweet, refreshing offering full of healthy goodness.  The many benefits of pineapples include reducing inflammation, aiding digestion, improving eye health and boosting immunity and blood circulation.  Pineapples are loaded with vitamin C and manganese and are a good source of dietary fibre.  Pineapples are composed of many flowers whose individual fruitlets fuse together around a central core giving them their very unique appearance.

One of the challenges in pineapple world is figuring out which ones are ripe and which ones need more time to perfect their goodness.  Here are 3 solid ways to help you choose the perfect one:

1. Look at it.  A delicious pineapple should look fresh, firm and not have any mould in its crevices.  A ripe pineapple’s colour can be greenish or yellowish
2. Pull out a green spike.  It should give you a bit of resistance
3. Smell it.  The best place to do this is by its butt.  It should have a sweet smell.  If there is no sweetness to its smell at all it’s probably not good to go

Although you can find pineapple in the stores already in chunks and slices, talking the time to cut it up yourself will help to preserve more of its freshness.  It’s really not that hard to do.  First, using a sharp knife, cut off the spikey top.  Then trim the butt so that it can stand up.  Trim down the sides of the pineapple removing all of its skin.  At this point the choice is yours on the type of cut.  Rings or chunks.  The tougher core in the middle is completely edible but not as tender as the rest.

Fresh is best but if you are looking for another way to eat it I have included a quick broiled pineapple recipe that is a great complement to many dishes.

Just click the menu icon for your recipe.

Enjoy!

Broiled Pineapple with Cinnamon