As spring arrives, here are five fruits you should avoid eating too much of!
1. Pineapple
Problem: Some people experience allergic reactions after eating pineapple, such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhea, numbness around the lips, and itchy skin.
Reason: This is because pineapple contains bromelain and glycosides. To prevent allergic reactions, be sure to soak the cut pineapple in light salt water for over ten minutes to break down the bromelain before eating it.
Nutritionist: Pineapple is a tropical fruit rich in dietary fiber and bromelain, which is very beneficial for preventing constipation and indigestion, making it a great choice for summer fruits.
As the weather warms up, we will see more and more vendors selling pineapple. Many vendors use fiberglass containers filled with salt water to soak the pineapple, with a chopstick inserted into each piece.
This is a reminder to everyone: when buying, consider how long the salt water in the fiberglass container hasn't been changed? Are the chopsticks new? This is not only a hygiene issue but can also cause secondary contamination.
2. Banana
Problem: To make the banana peel tender and yellow, some unscrupulous vendors use excessive sulfur dioxide to ripen them, but the flesh remains hard and not sweet at all. Sulfur dioxide is harmful to the human body.
Tip: The correct method should be to ripen them by heating.
Nutritionist: Banana is a nutrient-rich tropical fruit, sweet in flavor and cool in nature. It has the effects of moistening the intestines and clearing heat. Its natural ripening season is in the summer.
3. Strawberry
Benefits: Traditional Chinese medicine believes that strawberries can reduce internal heat, relieve summer heat, and clear heat. In spring, people's liver fire is often more vigorous, and eating strawberries can help suppress it.
In addition, it's best to eat strawberries after a meal because they contain a lot of pectin and fiber, which can promote gastrointestinal motility, aid digestion, improve constipation, and prevent hemorrhoids and colon cancer.
Problem: Strawberries that are hollow in the middle, misshapen, irregularly shaped, and overly large are, with very few exceptions, high-yield new varieties. Most are caused by the excessive use of hormones.
After strawberries are treated with ripening agents or other hormonal drugs, their growth cycle is shortened, their color becomes more vibrant, but their inherent aroma is diluted, and they lack a fresh taste when eaten.
Nutritionist: Strawberry is a very appealing fruit with a high vitamin C content, so eating fresh strawberries is a good choice. The natural ripening season for strawberries is late May each year.
4. Grape
Problem: Some unscrupulous vendors and growers dilute a ripening agent, ethylene, with water, and then soak unripe green grapes in the solution. After a day or two, the green grapes turn purple.
Nutritionist: August and September are the grape ripening season each year. Grape is sweet and slightly sour, and neutral in nature. It has the effects of nourishing qi and blood, strengthening muscles and bones, and promoting urination. Its sugar content is relatively high, so diabetics should be careful to only have a small amount.
5. Sugarcane
Problem: Most sugarcane available in spring is from the autumn harvest. After being stored for a whole winter, it is highly prone to spoilage, with絮状 or fluffy white substance appearing at the end of the sugarcane. After cutting it open, red thread-like substances can also be seen on the cross-section.
Hazard: Some people do not carefully select sugarcane when buying. After cutting it open and seeing the red thread-like substances, they think it's normal, but as a result, they suffer from sugarcane poisoning after consumption.
Nutritionist: Sugarcane is a great "heat-clearing" food. It is sweet and cool in nature, with the effects of clearing heat and promoting body fluids, moistening dryness by lowering qi, and harmonizing the stomach to reverse qi. Sugarcane's ripening season is in November. Besides spoilage due to improper storage, unripe sugarcane will also spoil after being cut down.
Reminder: The ripening season for the five fruits mentioned above is not spring. Most of what we eat is long-term stored fruit, so we cannot taste the best flavor and are unlikely to get sufficient nutrition.
In addition, from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective, most of these fruits are of a "cool" nature. It is best to eat fewer "cool" fruits in spring, so it is recommended that you eat less of these five fruits during this season.