International Pineapple Day

Let's celebrate International Pineapple Day!

June 27th is International pineapple day. Why? Pineapples are sweet, tasty, versatile and healthy and so a day of celebration was added to international calendars by Andrew and James from a company called Shortwave, making it easy for everyone to enjoy and admire this great fruit. Started as a joke, originally being "Bring Your Pineapple to Work Day", it quickly took off and became a global day of pineapple appreciation.

Pineapple on pizza everyone?

Where Do Pineapples Come From?

Pineapples originated from South America, where native people had been enjoying them for centuries before Europeans arrived and took advantage of the fruit, taking them across the world to cultivate.

When first grown for sale, pineapples are extremely expensive and considered a status symbol. Being popular though, a market grew for people to rent pineapples to use as centrepieces and decoration to impress guests. Today the biggest producers of pineapple in the world are Brazil, Indonesia and the Philippines from where they are exported to many countries for people to enjoy.

What's So Great About Pineapples?

There's more to pineapples than just tasting good, they come with a list of health benefits:

1. Source of protective antioxidants

Pineapples are a source of phytonutrients, protective plant compounds, especially flavonoids, or antioxidants.

2. Source of fibre

Pineapples are a great way to increase fibre in your diet. We all need fibre to help with digestion, feed our microbiome and keep out guts healthy.

3. Digestion Aid

Pineapple contains an enzyme, called as bromelain Bromelain breaks down the proteins in the food that we eat into amino acids and peptides, which makes pineapple a useful digestive aid for people who can’t break down their food easily, especially for those with pancreatic problems. The problem here is that pineapple has to be eaten fresh to get the bromelain as canning the fruit destroys the heat sensitive enzyme.

4. May support iron absorption

Pineapple is a good source of vitamin C, with the canned fruit being especially rich. Vitamin C helps with the absorption of iron, meaning that eating pineapple could help those with low iron levels to absorb more of the mineral from their food.

5. Anti-inflammatory

There have been a number of studies that have found that the bromelain in pineapples helps to reduce inflammation, swelling and bruising after injury or surgery. It can even be useful if taken before dental surgery, when it seems to help to reduce the pain that people feel. Bromelain has also been shown to relieve inflammatory pain associated with arthritis.

Nutrition

Pineapple is high in sugar, but this does not mean that we shouldn't enjoy it because, as you'll see from the table, there are loads of good things in pineapples. Below is a table of the nutrients found in 100g of pineapple.

Nutrient	Amount per 100g	Unit
Energy	50	kcal
Water	86.0	g
Carbohydrates	13.1	g
– Sugars	9.9	g
– Dietary Fibre	1.4	g
Protein	0.5	g
Fat	0.1	g
– Saturated Fat	0.01	g
– Monounsaturated Fat	0.01	g
– Polyunsaturated Fat	0.04	g

Vitamins

Vitamin	Amount per 100g	% Daily Value (DV)
Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid)	47.8 mg	53%
Thiamin (B1)	0.08 mg	7%
Riboflavin (B2)	0.03 mg	2%
Niacin (B3)	0.5 mg	3%
Vitamin B6	0.11 mg	6%
Folate (B9)	18 µg	5%
Vitamin A (RAE)	3 µg	<1%
Vitamin E	0.02 mg	<1%
Vitamin K	0.7 µg	<1%

Minerals

Mineral	Amount per 100g	% Daily Value (DV)
Calcium	13 mg	1%
Iron	0.29 mg	2%
Magnesium	12 mg	3%
Phosphorus	8 mg	1%
Potassium	109 mg	2%
Sodium	1 mg	0%
Zinc	0.12 mg	1%
Manganese	0.93 mg	40%
Copper	0.11 mg	12%

Happy International Pineapple Day!

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