My Tití Carmín has an orchard of beautiful grapefruit trees… These trees are the most prolific grapefruit trees I have ever seen. They are giving fruit almost all year-round. So even though we are currently in citrus season, these trees don’t know what that is.
I have always loved oranges, but not so much grapefruits. When I was little, I had tried some canned grapefruit juice that was just awful. But all that changed when I tried the juice from my Tití’s grapefruits. These grapefruits are juicy and sweet. And they like to proliferate, because they’re filled with seeds. Tití would make juice for me and at the beginning she would sweeten it a little, making a “grapefruitade”. She would squeeze the juice for me and bring it already in a bottle.
Now, every time we visit Tití Carmín, we return with bagfuls of grapefruits; sometimes enough grapefruits to make about 96 ounces of pure juice. Now I just drink it straight without any need to sweeten.
And that got me thinking… about the bountiful of health we have in our hands. I have once heard that nature gives you everything you need to be healthy at about 20 feet around where you live. Tití Carmín lives a bit farther away than 20 feet from me, but the access we have to these grapefruits made me want to think what benefits we are getting when I consume this delicious juice…
Here’s some of the research I did:
- Contains high levels of Vitamin C to protect against colds and flu and drinking a freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice helps also relieve sore throats and soothes coughs. The vitamin C also helps to strengthen and maintain the elasticity of arteries and helps to reduce water retention and swelling of the legs during pregnancy.
- The pectin in this fruit has been found to be effective in reducing the accumulation of arterial deposits keeping arteriosclerosis at bay.
- It has lots of vitamins and minerals like Vitamin A, B complex, E, K, Calcium, folic acid, phosphorus, and potassium.
- Nutritive phytonutrients and antioxidants that help fight cancer. Studies show that lycopene-rich foods, like grapefruits reduce the risk of ovarian, cervical, breast, prostate and colon cancer. And when eating or juicing grapefruit, peel off the skin but leave as much of the albedo (the white pith part) intact as possible as it contains the highest amount of valuable bioflavonoids and other anti-cancer agents.
- A certain compound found in grapefruit helps reduce the excessive production of cholesterol from the liver. A Harvard study revealed that drinking one glass of grapefruit juice or eating half a grapefruit daily lowered LDL (bad) cholesterol levels by 33 percent. And another study indicated specifically that red grapefruit reduces levels of triglycerides.
- Grapefruit has a fat-burning enzyme and can help to absorb and reduce the starch and sugar in the body. It is widely consumed by people who are trying to lose weight. A Johns Hopkins study found that people who had two servings of grapefruit or grapefruit juice daily along with a low-fat and low-calorie diet lost an average of 19 pounds over a period of 13 weeks. Cool, huh?
- Sometimes, when using certain medications doctors recommend avoiding grapefruit juice because supposedly the grapefruit halts the metabolism of these drugs. Doctors may tell you that grapefruit is the cause of toxicity, but in fact, it is really the drugs that are causing the toxicity. The abundant source of limonoid and naringin in grapefruit increase the function of detoxifying enzymes in the liver and will reject synthetic man-made drugs. These enzymes help to recognize alien compounds which should not be in our body, treats as toxins and makes them more water soluble to be excreted easily from the body.
- I was pleased to learn that grapefruit has many digestive benefits too… just like lemons and limes, even though it has an acid taste, its juice promotes good digestion and actually has an alkaline reaction after digestion by increasing the flow of gastric juices. This has a profound effect in the treatment of acidity in the digestive system that causes a host of other health problems.
One last curious thing… It is called a grapefruit simply because it grows in clusters, like grapes. I did not know that as a fact, but check out this photo… the do gow in clumps and that’s why they always have three indentations because they cant be completely round growing next to the other.
I hope you learned as much as I did of all the benefits this awesome elixir has. Now you can toast with a big glass of grapefruit juice and confidently say “To your health!!!”
Grapefruit
KarmaFree Cooking 
Thanks for the info, actually there’s a lot of Grapefruits here in Nicaragua, at the markets you have one per Córdoba, that is 21 grapefruits per dollar, it tastes very good and I like it a lot.
Thanks again
Grapefruit is also one of the best food to support natural body detoxification. It helps the liver to get rid of the metabolic waste as well as environmental toxins. It’s important to note, however, that the part that contains all the goodness is found in the thin and transparent skin that surrounds each grapefruit segment. So you’re better to eat your grapefruit as you would do with an orange, instead of scooping the flesh out with a spoon.
I am aware that grapefruit pith has health benefits. i recently bought a pomelo which had such thick pith that I fancied drying it and pulverising it.. However, what are the best ways to use the powder and how much at a time .How might taking grapefruit affect the efficacy of medications?
Thank you for your comments.
J
@JThomas – I am no expert on grapefruit or how it can affect medications… but here is a link from WebMD… From what I can gather, grapsfruit is so efficacious at purging toxic matter from your body that it works in the small intestine preventing certain chemical medications from ever being aboserbed into the body.