By Anupum Pant
Everyone knows pineapples and everyone who has eaten a lot of it in a single go knows how it can make your tongue sore. Pineapples, the sweet/sour tropical fruits, are evil. They contain protein digesting enzymes that can divide the proteins in your tongue, as well as in steak – which makes it tender.
One of the two protein breaking enzymes found in pineapples is Bromelain. The concentration of it is relatively high in the central stem and that’s one good reason we skip the stem when we eat a pineapple. Because bromelain can breakdown amino acids, the organic compounds found in living cells. This makes the muscle cells lose their shape and also makes your raw meat just tender enough.
A slice of pineapple in liqiuid jelly when you are making jelly will prevent the jelly from forming that wiggly solid. It will remain liquid. The enzyme breaks down gelatin too.
It does breakdown aminoacids in your tongue too, but then your tongue has a self-healing mechanism. Or you would no longer have a tongue after eating a couple of pineapples. The same damage, more than the body can repair, happens to the hands of people who have to keep cutting pineapples in a factory, or somewhere else. But it’s a myth that it erases fingerprints.
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