PINEAPPLE VS AVOCADOS

Avocados are terribly trendy. But suddenly pineapples are flying off the shelves too. So what’s behind their revival — and which is better for you?

ANY millennial worth their salt knows avocado is the fruit (and yes, it is a fruit) of the moment.

Mashed on toast, blended in a smoothie or even baked in a healthy dessert, its popularity among foodies is unrivalled. As a result, sales have soared — we ate more than 16 million avocados across Ireland in 2017.

But there’s a new fruit in town — or rather, an old one that’s having another moment in the sun. According to supermarkets, sales of whole pineapples surged last year, overtaking the avocado for speed of growth.

Demand for pineapple juice iand sales of tinned pineapple chunks are also on the up. Even pineapple-topped Hawaiian pizza is staging a comeback.

So, could pineapple really be the new avocado — and which is better for you, your wallet and the environment?

SEVENTIES STARDOM

TODAY’S young people aren’t the first to get over-excited about a fruit. Thanks to their exotic looks, pineapples created a stir across Europe after Christopher Columbus stumbled across them in South America in 1493.

But it wasn’t until the Victorian period that they became widely available. They were farmed across the British Empire, while gardeners here used modern greenhouses with hot-water heating to grow huge specimens.

Meanwhile, another South American import was arriving on the scene — the avocado. Hans Sloane, the Irish botanist whose collection formed the foundation of the British Museum, christened this strange fruit the ‘avocado pear’ in 1696. But they didn’t become popular as a commercial crop until the 20th century.

And it wasn’t until the 1970s that the avocado really came into its own, as improved shipping and food storage brought exotic foods steaming into the country at affordable prices.

Avocados were served with a vinaigrette or halved with a prawn cocktail filling.

Meanwhile, no 1970s party was complete without chunks of pineapple on sticks with little cubes of cheese, and no school dinner could do without a ring of tinned pineapple for pudding.

...AND NOW THEY’RE BACK IN FASHION

THE rise of the avocado in recent years has been extraordinary. This is partly down to improved ripening technology, allowing shoppers to buy them ‘ripe and ready’ from the shelves.

But there’s also a healthy dose of PR at play in the avocado’s changed fortunes.

From the mid-1990s, campaigns promoted avocados’ health benefits, while in recent years, their reinvention as a breakfast food, served on toast, has seen them become a cultural phenomenon.

Meanwhile, the pineapple has been enjoying a more under-theradar rise — triggered by its popularity as a design motif, plastered on everything from dresses to pool inflatables.

It wasn’t long until all those Instagram foodies realised that a pineapple looks even prettier than an avocado in an internet post. Now, they’re popping up in all sorts of recipes. For example, one updated take on the combination of ham and pineapple involves hollowing out a pineapple, stuffing with pieces of pork, wrapping it in bacon and slowroasting it as a sticky savoury treat. This concoction is known as the ‘swine-apple’.

A CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH

ONCE we believed that as long as you got your five a day, it didn’t matter which fruits you actually ate. But nowadays, the health credentials of any food are picked over in enormous detail.

So, which is better for you? It’s a tricky question. Avocados are much higher in fat — but it is the healthy kind needed for brain function and absorption of vitamins and joint health. They are also packed with fibre and an astonishing number of vitamins and minerals including B vitamins, vitamin K, potassium, copper, vitamin E and vitamin C.

A medium-sized pineapple can have 17g of sugar, but it’s worth remembering that this is natural sugar, rather than the processed kind that’s at the root of our national obesity crisis. You might not want to guzzle too much sugary pineapple juice, but the raw fruit is still a comparatively healthy indulgence.

It’s also rich in vitamin C and antioxidants — good for cell repair in your body. Nutritionist Antonia Magor (antoniamagor.

com) adds: ‘Pineapples contain an enzyme called bromelain that helps support healthy digestion, acts as an anti-inflammatory and promotes wound healing.’

Last month a study found eating pineapple daily could relieve painful joints in people with arthritis.

HOW DO THEY GET HERE?

PINEAPPLES were named for their resemblance to pinecones, but they’re actually a fruit made of many berries which have grown together. In Ireland, most pineapples come from Costa Rica, which is just over 8,000km away — although Hawaii, inspiration for the eponymous pizza, is also a centre of cultivation. Avocados, meanwhile, are also a berry and grow on trees. Those on our supermarket shelves typically come from Spain, Israel and South Africa, as well as Peru and Chile. This means that on average avocados travel around 5,500km to get to your plate. The incredible distance these fruits travel pushes up their price and their carbon footprint.

WHICH LASTS LONGER?

TIMING is everything with an avocado, as they have a shelf life of just three or four days, and turn brown quickly once cut. And they can’t be tinned easily thanks to their high fat content.

Pineapples last only marginally longer than avocados when fresh, but their robust texture means they can be canned and enjoyed as a quick treat year round.

BUT HOW ON EARTH DO YOU SLICE THEM?

AS THE avocado craze hit its peak, injuries from trying to cut open the flesh and extract the slippery stone became known as ‘avocado hand’. To cut an avocado safely, wrap your hand in a tea-towel to grip it and then slice horizontally on a chopping board, removing the stone with a spoon. But a pineapple might be a safer option, because of their spiky, grippy surface.

Chef Paul Yates, who runs the website barbecue-smoker

recipes.com, says: ‘It’s best to cut the bottom off first, to leave you with a flat surface to rest the fruit on. Then hold the pineapple from the leaves on the top and cut downwards to remove the skin one strip at a time.’

However there is another way in which a pineapple is more likely to draw blood than an avocado. The enzyme they contain, bromelain, is so powerful that it can dissolve the skin of your tongue — that’s the tingle you may feel when you eat it.