Food Finds about Pineapples

  • Pineapple skin, core, and ends are used in the making of alcohol, vinegar, and animal feed.
  • Each pineapple plant produces just one pineapple per year!
  • Unripened pineapples taste terrible and are poisonous to humans, causing irritation of the throat and having a powerful laxative effect.
  • Pineapples can take up to two years to reach their full size (20lbs), so generally people pick and eat them before they are done maturing.
  • Standing a pineapple upside down (leaf on bottom) will cause it to ripen much faster.
  • Pineapple juice is a diuretic, and it has also been used to induce labor.
  • The Bromelain enzyme in pineapples breaks down proteins. This means that you can use pineapple or pineapple juice as a meat tenderiser.
  • The pineapple is native to Brazil and Paraguay, yet the Dole company grows massive amounts in Hawaii.  Their Hawaiian pineapple farms are so vast, that the company actually owns several entire islands.
  • The Spanish introduced the first pineapples to Hawaii. The state is now one of the top pineapple producers in the world, producing one third of the world’s pineapple crop and 60 percent of the world’s canned pineapple.
  • “The Pineapple King,” James Dole, started his first pineapple plantation in Wahiawa, Hawaii in 1900 and opened his first cannery in 1901.