Pear — Juicy, sweet and healthy

What is the say­ing? You should­n’t com­pare apples with pears. Even if the two are not the same fruit, they still have some sim­i­lar­i­ties. For exam­ple, both are very loved. The pear is even one of the most pop­u­lar fruits world­wide. Fur­ther­more, both grow on trees, belong to the same fam­i­ly and both can shine in the same hues. And most impor­tant­ly, both fruits are healthy.

The ori­gin, prop­er­ties and his­to­ry of the pear

Pears have been around for a very long time. They for mil­len­nia a well-known fruit and is believed to have orig­i­nat­ed in south­west­ern Chi­na. From there it spread through Cen­tral and West­ern Asia to us in Europe.

The Romans were par­tic­u­lar­ly fond of pears; they cul­ti­vat­ed about 40 dif­fer­ent vari­eties. Here in Europe, pears were plant­ed in monas­ter­ies. A dis­tinc­tion is made between Euro­pean and Asian pears, as breed­ing took place inde­pen­dent­ly of each oth­er on the two continents.

About the pear there are also var­i­ous myths and leg­ends. For exam­ple, in the Mid­dle Ages, the pear tree served as a love ora­cle. So they asked girls at that time a pear tree for advice.

In itself, the pear is divid­ed into table, cook­ing and cider pears:

  • The table pears are our eat­ing pears. They have an intense fra­grance and taste deli­cious­ly sweet. Their flesh is juicy and soft.
  • The cook­ing pear is actu­al­ly the pre­de­ces­sor of today’s table pear. This vari­ety is often used for cook­ing or bak­ing, as it is nei­ther sweet nor juicy. More­over, it is quite hard even when ripe.
  • The cider pear is very acidic and there­fore not suit­able for raw con­sump­tion. How­ev­er, they are opti­mal for mak­ing must and fruit wines.

The sweet fruit is avail­able all year round. How­ev­er, its main sea­son is from August to November.

The ingre­di­ents of the pear

Although the pear con­tains count­less vit­a­mins and min­er­als, it is not the most nutri­tious fruit. In itself, the fruit con­tains vit­a­mins A, C and B1. In terms of min­er­als, it con­tains potas­si­um, mag­ne­sium and folic acid. On 100 g of pear also come just 55 kcal.

The effect of the pear on our body

Although pears do not exact­ly shine with their vit­a­min and min­er­al val­ues, they are still very healthy. This is main­ly due to the fact that the fruit con­tains a lot of sec­ondary plant com­pounds, which have a pos­i­tive effect on our health.

For exam­ple, the pear helps us with intesti­nal prob­lems and con­sti­pa­tion, because the fruit is very rich in fiber and thus has a diges­tive effect.

Due to the high potas­si­um con­tent, the pear has a drain­ing effect on us. Thus, it helps our body to flush out water reten­tion and this in turn has a detox­i­fy­ing effect. In addi­tion, this also pro­motes our blad­der and kid­ney activity.

Anoth­er pos­i­tive effect has the pear on dia­bet­ics, because it does not release insulin. As a result, it has lit­tle effect on blood sug­ar lev­els. Oth­er pos­i­tive effects are: it pre­vents cell aging, it pro­motes fat metab­o­lism, it has an anti-inflam­ma­to­ry effect and low­ers blood pressure.

The pear in the kitchen

The pear can be used in many ways. So you can cook them, bake, steam, dry and even grill. That is, they can be processed into cakes, smooth­ies, cere­als, fruit sal­ad, jam, com­pote, mush. Accord­ing­ly, they can be served as an appe­tiz­er, side dish, main course or even dessert. How­ev­er, it is espe­cial­ly pop­u­lar as a dessert after dessert — this refers to “Williams Christ” brandy. If you eat the pear raw, you should not peel it, because the healthy active sub­stances are hid­den among oth­ers in its skin.

Pur­chase and stor­age of the pear

Pears are very sen­si­tive fruits. Due to the fact that they are very sen­si­tive to pres­sure, they quick­ly devel­op brown spots. Depend­ing on the vari­ety, they can­not be stored for long. This is part­ly due to the fact that they are usu­al­ly sold ready for consumption.

When buy­ing should make sure that the shell is smooth and unharmed. In par­tic­u­lar, the pear should be exam­ined for pres­sure marks. It is best to choose pears that are not ripe, but pre­fer to let them ripen at home. The brown spot along the stem is com­plete­ly nor­mal and need not be fur­ther observed.

If the pears are already ripe, they should be stored in the fruit com­part­ment of the refrig­er­a­tor. Since their shelf life is lim­it­ed, they should be con­sumed with­in a few days.

How­ev­er, if the pears are still hard and need to ripen, the ide­al place to store them is at room tem­per­a­ture. To increase the shelf life of the pears you have sev­er­al options. The best way is to boil them down and put them in a vac­u­um-sealed jar. Alter­na­tive­ly, they can be made into a puree or com­pote and then frozen.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be pub­lished. Required fields are marked *

I accept the Pri­va­cy Policy

This site is pro­tect­ed by reCAPTCHA and the Google Pri­va­cy Pol­i­cy and Terms of Ser­vice apply.

The reCAPTCHA ver­i­fi­ca­tion peri­od has expired. Please reload the page.