Pomegranate Pow

As big as a small grapefruit, these tough skinned reddish fruits can be sectioned like an orange and pulled apart to expose clusters of lovely, glistening red seeds (as many as 600) inside. The seeds, which are surrounded by juicy pulp, are the edible part.

In the food industry, pomegranate is included in a novel category of exotic fruits called superfruits.

Research has proven the juice of the pomegranate effective in reducing heart disease risk factors and systolic blood pressure. Pomegranate seed oil has been effective against the proliferation of breast cancer cells and during early 2008, 17 clinical trials were underway to examine the effects of pomegranate juice consumption on diseases that included: prostate cancer, diabetes, and the common cold.

Although we can’t grow these 20-foot trees in this part of Canada, they do produce fruit as far East as South Carolina and are cultivated for their juice in parts of California and Arizona.

Grenadine was originally made from pomegranates. The seeds make terrific additions to salads and can be used in muffins, cookies or soups.

This fruit is richly abundant when it comes to legends and mythology. Persephone, the goddess of the underworld, was tricked into eating four pomegranate seeds, a mistake that decreed she must spend four months of every year with Hades.

Some Jewish scholars believe that the pomegranate rather than the apple was the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.

One of the most uplifting stories I found connected with pomegranate however is a modern-day one that I read on the Time website.

Since the Taliban regime fell six years ago, USAID has helped plant more than a million pomegranate trees. In 2007, Afghan farmers harvested between 33,000 and 44,000 tons of the fruit, of which some 1,102 tons were flown or trucked out.

Prior to the 1970s, Afghanistan was famous for its pomegranates, grapes, apricots and other fruit. With assistance from other nations, here’s hoping that orchards rather than opium poppy fields, will help reestablish the prosperity of Afghanistan once again.