When purchasing fruit from the grocery store or your local farmer’s market, you may overlook pomegranates for fruits more popular in the U.S., like apples or oranges. But pomegranates are loaded with antioxidants and they pack quite a nutritional punch.
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The primary source of pomegranate's benefits come from its antioxidant content. Pomegranates contain three types of antioxidant polyphenols, including tannins, anthocyanins and ellagic acid, in significant amounts. These micronutrients play an important role in helping your body resist cellular damage and aging caused by everyday exposure to pollutants.
Research shows that the antioxidants in pomegranates also benefit your heart in several different ways, including the ability to lower systolic blood pressure. Pomegranates have also been shown to help slow and even reverse the growth of plaque formation in arteries, improve blood flow and keep arteries from becoming thick and stiff.
How to De-Seed a Pomegranate in Three Simple Steps
If you’re not familiar with pomegranates, they can be an intimidating fruit to add to your diet. But once you learn how to eat them, you’ll be able to reap the benefits. If you cut a pomegranate in half, you'll find it's filled with juice-filled seed sacs called arils (about 600 of them in an average pomegranate), separated by thin white (and bitter) membranes.
Arils are the "jewels" of the pomegranate, and they're the part you'll want to enjoy. Many people enjoy pomegranates alone as a snack, but you can also sprinkle the arils over salads or cooked dishes. Inside each aril is a crunchy fiber-rich seed. While some people spit them out, you can eat them whole, seed and all. So how do you get out the arils? The POM Council recommends this simple three-step process:
- Cut off the crown, then cut the pomegranate into sections
- Place the section in a bowl of water, then roll out the arils with your fingers (discard everything else)
- Strain out the water, then enjoy the arils whole, seeds and all