They’re hard in the center, but packed with nutrients!
Growing up as a picky eater, one of my major food turn-offs was anything that had a solid object inside of it. The most common culprits of this were fruits with pits. I just wanted to eat things, not eat around things. But as it turns out, I was missing out. Fruits with pits, also known as “stone fruits,” may be a bit thick in the mid-section, but everything around that is primo natural goodness.
A stone fruit, also known as a “drupe,” is a catch-all term for any kind of fruit with a hard object in the center, i.e. a pit. This includes fruits like peaches, mangoes, apricots, cherries, and plums. These kinds of fruits tend to be seasonal, so you can’t always get them, but when they’re at their freshest, the flesh around the pit is tender and super-sweet. Like most natural fruits, stone fruits are absolutely lousy with essential vitamins, as well as heart protective antioxidants. The combination of those antioxidants and a hearty dose of vitamin C make stone fruits natural disease busters, powering up your immune system with the weapons it needs.
Stone fruits are also great for your skin, as their particular cocktail of vitamins has the side benefit of boosting collagen production. This is why you see things like apricots and peaches as ingredients in commercial skincare products; they keep your skin and hair shiny, smooth, and healthy. Peaches and plums are also high in potassium, which in term make them good for controlling high blood pressure. Their sweet taste certainly doesn’t hurt either.
Speaking of taste, the pleasurable flavor of most stone fruits make them easy to eat straight, but if you’re in a hurry, they make great mix-ins for smoothies and juices.
