Five fruits to avoid eating too much in spring
Introduction: Fruits are rich in vitamins and taste great, and have been people's favorites since ancient times. However, the time you eat fruit matters, and it's best to avoid out-of-season fruits. With the arrival of spring, here are five fruits you should definitely not eat too much of!
1. Pineapple
Problem: Some people experience allergic reactions after eating pineapple, such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, numbness of the lips, and itching of the skin.
Reason: This is because pineapple contains bromelain and glucosides. To prevent allergic reactions, pineapple should be soaked in light salt water for more than ten minutes after cutting to destroy the bromelain before eating.
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 fruit. As the weather warms up, we'll see more vendors selling pineapple. Many vendors soak pineapple in salt water in fiberglass containers, with a chopstick inserted in each piece. This is a reminder to consider: how long has the salt water in the fiberglass container not 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 look yellow and attractive, 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.
Tips: The correct method should be to ripen them with heat.
Nutritionist: Banana is a nutrient-rich tropical fruit, sweet in taste and cool in nature, with 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 have the effects of reducing internal heat, relieving summer heat, and clearing heat. In spring, people's liver fire is often more vigorous, and eating strawberries can help suppress it. Additionally, it's best to eat strawberries after meals 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, irregular, and overly large are, with very few exceptions, high-yield new varieties. Most are caused by excessive hormones. After using ripening agents or other hormonal drugs, the strawberry's growth cycle is shortened, the color becomes more vibrant, but the natural aroma is diluted, and they lack a fresh taste when eaten.
Nutritionist: Strawberries are a very attractive fruit with a high vitamin C content, so eating fresh strawberries is a good choice. The natural ripening period for strawberries is late May each year.
4. Grape
Problem: Some unscrupulous vendors and growers dilute ripening agent ethylene with water, soak immature green grapes in the solution, and after a day or two, the green grapes turn purple.
Nutritionist: August and September are the grape ripening season. Grapes are sweet and slightly sour, and neutral in nature. They have the effects of nourishing qi and blood, strengthening muscles and bones, and promoting urination. They have a high sugar content, 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 a flocculent or fluffy white substance appearing at the end of the sugarcane. After cutting, there will also be red, thread-like substances on the cross-section.
Harm: Some people do not pick carefully when buying sugarcane. When they see the red, thread-like substances after cutting, they think it's normal, but eating it can lead to sugarcane poisoning.
Nutritionist: Sugarcane is a great "fire-reducing" food. It is sweet in taste and cool in nature, with the effects of clearing heat and promoting fluid production, lowering qi and moistening dryness, and harmonizing the stomach and reversing qi. Sugarcane's ripening season is in November. Besides spoilage due to improper storage, unripe sugarcane can also become moldy after being cut down.
Tip: The ripening season for none of the five fruits above is spring. Most of what we eat is long-term stored, so we cannot get the best flavor or sufficient nutrition. Additionally, from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective, most of these fruits are considered cool or cold in nature. It is best to eat less of these fruits in spring. Therefore, it is recommended to eat less of these five fruits in spring.