I don’t know why but dragon fruit never attracted me to buy whenever I passed by this fruit. Yesterday I received two from a friend! I was thinking oh-oh, so in the end I had to ask my friend how do you actually eat it. Of course, she was very surprised that I, of all people don’t buy or eat this fruit. For some reason or other, I also don’t know why but anyway, I decided to give it a go.

“Just cut the fruit into half and to eat it, just scoop up the flesh with a spoon,” said my friend, amused. So I did as told and imagined what a shock I had…I just got bowled over…it was very sweet, juicy and crunchy, even the black seeds were edible and I immediately finished the other half. My family is now looking forward to eating more of this fruit very soon.

I decided to check out this fruit and what I found…? That it is a fruit of a cactus plant originated from South America. There are two common species of this pink fruit in the market - the white flesh and the other with a purple-red flesh. The texture is slightly similar to the watermelon and tastes like the golden kiwifruit. Dragon fruit comprises of 80 per cent water and is considered to be a thirst quencher.

The nutritional contents in a Dragon fruit pulp are Vitamin C, (said to be more than watermelon and apple) soluble fibre, calcium, iron and phosphorous. The red-purple specie is found to have carotenoids due to its pigment, said to improve eyesight, protection against some cancers and heart diseases, a phytochemical and anti-oxidant that is known as having many health promoting qualities.

I am told that to select for a ripe dragon fruit, the fruit should be heavy, firm and have a waxy look with scales that are fresh and greenish looking. If you want it sweeter, store the fruit a bit longer so the water from the skin moves to the pulp though the flavour would be a bit bland, if you don’t mind that. Enjoy….
(Would have uploaded a pix of the dragon fruit here but there is a malfunction in the coding?)