Have you tried: Dragon Fruit?

Dragon Fruit has so many amazing health benefits, not to mention that it tastes amazing!  Have you tried this powerful fruit?  On this quick HAVE YOU TRIED episode I briefly touch on some of the health benefits & ways to enjoy this beauty.  

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Transcript

Well, hello everyone.
How is everybody today?
This is health coach Kristin, and welcome to the Common Sense Nutrition Podcast.
This is the Have You Tried episode that I'm going to be discussing the topic of dragon
fruit, or also known as pitaya fruit.
I have been eating a lot of this lately, and I just wanted to share some information with
you guys because I've been wondering if you've tried it.
First of all, I just want to ask you guys to, before I get started, go ahead and just
check out my website at commonsensenutritionaz.com for more information on what I do as a health
coach.
I'd really love for you to check that out.
Okay, dragon fruit.
I did a cleanse in July, and there was a lot of focus on dragon fruit in this cleanse protocol,
and it made me wonder why, obviously, there was some reason that we were encouraged to
consume so much dragon fruit.
It's something that I'm finding is more readily available.
First of all, have you seen this fruit?
It looks otherworldly to me.
It's an absolutely mystical looking creature that looks like it comes from another planet.
It's beautiful.
It's got this amazing bright pink fleshy outer with these little green curls that come out
of the skin.
When you cut it open, it's either white with black flecks inside that almost looks like
there's chia seeds inside of there, or it's got a dark pink flesh with little black seeds
inside.
It's absolutely gorgeous, and I think it can be a little off-putting when you look at it
because it's not something that we've normally seen very readily available.
People probably overlook it because they don't know what to do with it, but I don't typically
buy it fresh.
I haven't purchased it like that, but what I do buy it in is frozen, the frozen food
section.
I buy the bags and I put some in smoothies, typically.
If you're just slicing up a bowl of fruit, sometimes I like to mix.
I especially love summer fruits and berries and melons and stuff, and if I've got a couple
different kinds of melon and berries and put it in a bowl to have for breakfast or a snack,
you can take some of those frozen chunks of the dragon fruit out of the freezer and
toss that in with it, and then as they melt, it just gets super yummy.
Berries in general are good to do that with in your bowl of fruit, or cherries.
So good is when they thaw.
It just gets nice and juicy in the fruit salad, in your bowl of fruit.
What I love about it in the smoothie is that it's very hydrating.
It's got a ton of fiber.
We're going to talk about some of the benefits of dragon fruit today, but I also love just
the taste of it and it's just really sweet.
So if I just take like, oh, I don't know, like even a tablespoon or so of chunks out
of the frozen bag and add that to my smoothie, it adds this gorgeous pink color to my smoothies
and it just adds this layer of sweetness that's just, it's not like cloyingly sweet.
It's almost like a tart sweet.
I just think it's amazing.
And this is, like I said, it's one of those things that I've been eating a lot of lately
and I wonder, have you tried it?
I'd love to know if you have, but there's a lot of great health benefits to it.
Like I said, when we did this cleanse, I was like, why are we eating so much of this?
So it led me to look into it.
And one thing I love, I mean, you can call it a super food, a super fruit.
I think that term is so overused.
It's kind of silly.
But there's a lot of nutrients in dragon fruit, so it's a super nutrient dense food.
So I feel like that's probably why you really don't need a lot.
I mean, you can have a lot, but you really don't need it.
But things, it's got protein, carbohydrates, dietary fiber, iron, magnesium, it's high
in vitamin C and vitamin E, and it's very low in calories.
And it's got carotenoids and polyphenols and all sorts of antioxidants in it.
So one thing I noticed when I added it to my smoothies, I could tell that it had a lot
of fiber just because of the way it kind of bulked up the smoothie and fiber is so good
for digestion.
It's so good for our gut health.
We need to be consuming things that are good for our gut health.
I feel like especially now, even this time of year, at the end of the year, Christmas
time, the holiday season, it's really stressful.
And stress is so bad for our gut health.
This year, 2020 in general, has been so bad, so stressful.
So anything we can do to be focusing on, and we should be doing things every day and putting
things in our body every day that aid in helping our bodies grow healthy gut bacteria and fiber,
really good, healthy fiber is a great way to do that, the fiber that we get from plants.
So also, and that's also just really good for just things like, you know, your body
weight.
Fiber is very good because it just keeps us regular.
It keeps our blood sugar level and balanced.
It stops the sugar roller coaster and those crazy cravings for sugar.
So fiber is super important for our bodies for lots of reasons.
And because it's also high in fiber, it's really good for digestion.
You know, helps move things through.
And it's high in iron and vitamin C and it's iron deficiency is just something that's rampant.
We need more iron.
Iron is an important nutrient that we need to be getting from food and high in vitamin
C, which is awesome because we know that vitamin C, people that typically have diets high in
vitamin C and have good vitamin C consumption.
It's really good for immune health and hello 2020 we've been talking a lot about the importance
of healthy immune systems and vitamin C is a huge contributing factor to maintaining
immune health.
So also really good for bone health, magnesium is prevalent in dragon fruit and it's also
our calming mineral.
So it's for, I mean, I love magnesium for both of those reasons.
It's just, it helps us to relax, but it's also really good for bone health.
And it also just helps with, we are, when we're boosting the immune system with the
vitamin C basically we're just helping our white blood cells to be healthy and we're
flushing out all sorts of toxins and all that bad stuff out of our bodies.
So, and all that stuff, I'll get it, you know, adding all of these good nutrients and these
vitamins and minerals and having it in such a high concentration at such a small amount
of fruit, that is just a powerhouse right there and there's so many different uses for
it.
Like I said, throw it in some smoothies, just munch on a couple of cubes, let them thaw.
Just eat a couple of cubes after they thaw out of the freezer each day or buy it fresh
if you can find it.
I have also found it and used it in the dry powdered form and you can find it on Amazon
if you look for it.
Just look for one that's organic or certified non-GMO so that it's not sprayed with all
sorts of pesticides and chemicals, but I like to use just one tablespoon or less in a smoothie.
It does amazing things.
Lots of fiber in that scoop, lots of magnesium, minerals, vitamin C, this is such a great
little powerhouse.
So I love this fruit.
I encourage you to try it.
If you haven't already and I would love to know what you think about it after you try
it.
So I'm going to go ahead and wrap this up for us today, but I just want to thank you
guys so much for joining me and listening in and I hope you found this to be of value.
And if you like what you hear, I hope that you'll share this podcast with a friend.
I would love to see you subscribe to my podcast.
I'm on most of the major subscription channels that you can find.
So be sure to check out my website once again, commonsensenutritionaz.com.
Shoot me a message while you're in there.
Let me know what you'd like me to touch on for future podcasts or for the Have You Tried
version of the podcast.
And while you're in there, click on that program's button or you're going to learn more about
the clean eating program that I lead each month where I've taken my knowledge of holistic
nutrition, health coaching, and preventive health.
And I combine that with my knowledge of different dietary theories and I use this to help coach
you through a lifestyle program with a 10-day monthly jumpstart.
I'm really excited for you to check it out.
And you can reach me through my website once again, commonsensenutritionaz.com to get started.
And until next time, this is Kristen Peterson.
Stay healthy, eat clean, and thank you for listening to my Common Sense Nutrition podcast.