Nutritious and Delicious?

If I were to ask you what fruit you thought had the highest Vitamin C content what would be your first answer?  Maybe:  Oranges?  Nope, I'll give you a little hint:  look about one inch up.  Okay, actually the Kiwi fruit does not have the highest Vitamin C content of all fruit, but it far surpasses that of what is in oranges.  According to a study done by Rutgers University, the Kiwi fruit has more nutrients packed inside of it per ounce than any other fruit.  Wow, that's a pretty amazing honor, I think.  What's more, 1 medium Kiwi has about 2.5 grams of fiber.  That's a lot of fiber disguised in a little package.  In fact, that is how much fiber is in one slice of my family's favorite 100% whole wheat bread.

Have you ever had a Kiwi?  They are just plain delicious!  If they are fully ripe, they have a slightly sour, mildly sweet flavor.  The more ripe they are, the milder the flavor.

How to tell when a Kiwi is ripe:  Most of the time Kiwi fruits are not ripe when I buy them at the store.  A Kiwi fruit is ripe if you pick it up and it has a bit of give under light pressure.  If you find Kiwi fruits that are soft under light pressure, or their skin is wrinkled, they are probably over-ripe.  I have a problem with a lot of produce that I buy at the store:  it goes from rock-hard to mush over night.  I don't know if this is related to the way produce is picked under-ripe for transport to the store, but I do know that I rarely have this problem with Kiwi fruit.

How to peel a Kiwi:  I once read a great tip in a Martha Stewart Living magazine about the easiest way to peel a Kiwi fruit:  First you slice off both ends, then you take a metal spoon and slide it into the fruit right under the skin.  Then you turn the spoon, cutting away all the outside skin.  Your whole, peeled, Kiwi fruit should just slide right out of the skin for you to slice it up.  It should end up about like this:

Another reason why I love Kiwi fruits, is that they are on the EWG's list of the Clean 15!  If you would like to know what I am talking about, check out this post that I wrote.

Kinda seems like such an incredible super-food like the Kiwi fruit would be pretty expensive if it was packaged and sold in pill-form, huh?  Believe it or not, where I live, Kiwi fruits are one of the most affordable produce items available.  My local stores sell them for $0.25- $0.50 a piece-which I think is an incredible value when you take into account all the nutrition that is packed into each bite. 

My favorite ways to eat a Kiwi are just simply peeled and sliced up or added to a fresh fruit salad along with pretty much any other fruit that I have on hand (fresh pineapple, banana, strawberries, blueberries, grapes, you get the idea).