Collab #4: Prickly Pears Health Benefits

For our fourth collaboration Brigitte introduced me to the fruit of the Prickly Pear Cactus. This cactus is of the Opuntia family. Many of the members of this species are also edible and just last week we created the Nopal Salad which had as its main ingredient the pads of one of the Opuntia varities. I was surprised to discover that the Cacti bear fruits and even more surprised to discover that they are edible!

There was yet another surprise in store for me, the fruits of the prickly pear also known as 'tunas' have many health benefits.

Antioxidants

Antioxidants are linked to reduction of certain degenrative diseases and protect against free radicals(unstable molecules that can damage your healthy cells). Prickly Pears are full of antioxidants.

Dietary Fiber

Dietary fiber does a lot of good for the body and has been shown to play a part in disease prevention including some types of cancer. The pears are also a good source of fiber. each pear has approximately 4grams of fiber which is 15% for men and 21% for women of the body's requirements(based on a 2000-calorie diet)

Vitamin C

We all know by now the importance of vitamin C. Since we were kids we know we have to drink orange juice and eat fruits for this essential vitamin. The Prickly pear fruit can provide almost a quarter of the body's necessary daily intake of vitamin C.

Essential Minerals

The prickly pear also provides 13% of your daily intake of copper, 40% of the recommended intake of Magnesium and small amounts of potassium, calcium and phosphorous.

How do you eat it? 

Like most other fruits! Peel, slice if you prefer and eat! Its not a complicated fruit at all. The seeds are also edible and if you enjoy strawberries you'll feel quite at home with the prickly pear. I found that the texture was very similar to the strawberry as well. The seeds were crunchy but very small and not difficult to work with.

If I can get a few more from Brigitte I'll coax them into my blender and see what other nutritional creations we can come up with.

The skeptic in me is gone. Cactus fruits are great! However you chose to enjoy this fruit, there's no doubt that it has many health benefits and tastes really great.