Welcome to my First Fun Food Fact Friday!  Wow that is a lot of F-words!  Maybe I should have made my First FFFF (F4) be figs!  Making today a FFFFFF or F6!  I love numbers and patterns.  

What is F4?  It is my day to let my science geek girl shine AND my research writer glow AND my culinary artist side create AND (finally) my food coach cheer.  

Did you have home economics in school?  I did!  I had more detentions because of home economics than any other class.  (I would like to formally apologize to my teachers for being a difficult student.)  One detention was given for pineapple unit.  We were asked to make jello using pineapple and I didn’t–I refused.  I made my jello with pineapple on the side.  Why?

Well, pineapple has bromelian an enzyme that breaks down protein chains.  Jell-O is made out of gelatin, a processed version of protein, which is made out of . . . animal products!  

If you want to read about the where and what of the animal products go here.  I learned something new today!  Jello-O is not vegan.

• pineapple is a natural tenderizer for meat BUT the sap of a pineapple plant contains huge amounts of bromelian as a defense mechanism causing pain if eaten.
• pineapple is a natural anti-inflammatory so it might help alleviate pain from a sports injury, sinus issues, and digestive issues.
• pineapple is very high in manganese (helps strong bones and helps build collagen–if it prevents wrinkles–I’ll take a bath in it!)
• pineapple is high in Vitamin C

Pineapple Recipes!

I created a video about how to cut a pineapple.  I create these videos so that you can see what I’m doing–not because I do it the best way but my viewers can really get a sense of how juicy a pineapple is, how hard it is to cut through (I do try not to grunt when I make these videos but I almost did in this one!) and how simple it really is.

You can check out that video here!  BTW:  the video also contains a super quick recipe that I use often AND a different version of the recipe is in the “Busy Weekend Meals” e-chapter.  

One of my favorite places to find recipes is at Jessica’s site, Life as Mom.  I have added several recipes to her site as a food blogger.  If you haven’t checked her site out–it is amazing.

Joy the Baker makes a great vegan banana bread with pineapple.

You know what is so great about pineapple?  you can add it to anything and make dinner special–steamed rice with chunks of pineapple is awesome!  Add it to your next smoothie or even better you can juice it!  I just did a video on juicing . . . coming soon. 

Go On

What are you waiting for?  Go out and buy a pineapple and tell me what you did with it!  

Or do you have a favorite recipe?  Share some pineapple love in the comments.

Be Blessed.

L.O.V.E.

Renee