I’ve lost more or less 5-8 pounds and lowered my cholesterol to normal levels, by avoiding all types of meat, and subsisting on a steady diet of lots of fish, tons of vegetables, and truckloads of fruits. One of my miracle wonder fruits, that grew ever so reliable as my staple fruit, is the trusty pineapple. Almost all my mornings have been powered by this juicy ball of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, which is also high in fibre and delicious to boot. I would hoard this certain brand of pineapple that I buy in groceries, which are already peeled and sliced and packed in bite-size tidbits. Then my love affair with this fruit came to an abrupt end, care of a third party that put a wedge in between — Delamar. Apparently, Delle has also been munching away on pineapples as well, until one day, when she noticed white little flowery growths on one particular batch that she wasn’t able to consume right away. She brought my attention to it, asked me if my pineapples also had them, and when I checked…HORRORS…they did!!! I was petrified. I’m not being O.A., it’s just that I’ve read many articles on how so many people have gotten cancer by eating moldy food. And since we noticed that these polyps grew on pineapple chunks that have been left uneaten for a while, they might be a certain type of molds or fungus that could be potent carcinogens. And I must’ve been ingesting these “flowers” for months now. How ironic, to get cancer by eating fruits that should’ve been protecting you from the disease in the first place! And given the recent cancer scare in our family, I felt so betrayed by my fruit du jour. But then here’s the thing, those white anemone-like growths, seem to only grow in the holes in the fruit where the “eyes” were taken out. So we were thinking that maybe they’re not molds, but that they’re like buds or something, that pineapples sprout out, when they’re about to germinate or multiply or whatever. Like onions or garlic or coconuts that sprout buds or leaves when you leave them alone for a long time. So here’s my plea: before I break-up for good with the pineapple, can anyone please tell me what the hell these white flowers are? Maybe you know the answer, or maybe you know a botanist or a fruitologist, or someone who works for those pineapple juice companies who could identify what they are, and whether they’re safe to eat or not? I tried my best to take as clear a shot of it as I could. But since I don’t have macro lens yet, here’s the best I could come up with:
If you notice, there’s a smaller one in the other hole as well. Here’s a closer look:
They’re scary little buggers, huh? They’re like aliens in our food and this is how they colonize us, by entering our systems via pineapples, then body-snatching us when the time comes. Check your own pineapples, especially the ones that have been sitting in the ref for some time, and I guarantee you’ll see them too! Please, please, please, ask around, anyone who might know, for our collective peace of mind.
If I may digress a bit…but still on the topic of food…I haven’t been lucky with the stuff that I’ve been putting in my mouth lately. Just the other day, I was eating nilagang whatever dead animal, and as I was eating only the vegetables, I was mystified to feel a certain something that was kinda crunchy, kinda chewy, kinda gamey in my mouth. The more I tried to feel it with my tongue, the more panic whispered that what I was chewing on wasn’t anywhere near a vegetable. Inasmuch as I didn’t want to confirm my worst fears, my curiosity wouldn’t allow me not to know what it was. Very much like when you accidentally touch a mysterious liquid, no matter how gross the outcome, you just have to smell it, right? Same here. So I fished it out of my mouth with my fork, and there it sat…comfortably between the tines…a big, fat, dead, hairy spider, curled up in a ball of legs. I searched the net the whole day to find something that looked like it, and here’s the closest I could find — this is a dead ringer for the spider I was chewing on, even the way it was curled up:
Gross. I still retch every time I remember the consistency it had in my mouth. It must’ve been hiding between the cabbage leaves or something. Either that or our yaya has a bone to pick with me.
But back to the pineapple, ask around, okay?
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