Exotic Imported Fruit And Vegetable

I saw these imported exotic fruit and vegetable at De Market Supermarket, which got me thinking if anyone would spend RM30 on an ear of  sweet corn imported from Japan and RM40 on a  medium sized yellow Pitahaya (dragon fruit) from Ecuador?



Sweet corns are loaded with Vitamin B Complex and Vitamin A, lutein and zeaxanthin (which help fight eye diseases), help fight anemia, improve one's cholesterol level and some studies have shown that sweet corns help to fight cancer.

Corn is  rich in ferulic acid, an anticarcinogenic agent that has been shown to be effective in fighting the tumors, which lead to breast and liver cancer. Anthocyanins, found in purple corn, also act eliminates cancer-causing free radicals.




Yellow pitahayas are the sweetest and finest of all pitahayas.  They are jam-packed with nutrients, vitamins and have a wide range of health benefits ranging from preventing constipation, diabetes prevention, heart-healthy, immune booster, keeps you looking youthful and even  has the potential to prevent cancer.

Though chockful of vitamins and disease fighting nutrients, would you spend so much on sweet corns and dragon fruits?

Smoothie Of The Day - 4 March 2015

Since December last year, I have been churning out fruit smoothies for everyone in the family everyday. Fruit smoothies are such a convenience for busy and always on-the-go people like my hubs and 2 older girls. Sherilyn tends to be lazy to eat her fruits. By the time she gets home from the enrichment center everyday, it is already close to 7pm and already  dinner time. This gives her little or no time to eat her fruits.  Sometimes I place cut fruits in a lunch box for her to eat in the car - from the enrichment center back home. But on most days, she is just lazy to eat her fruits, especially fruits that require chewing!

It is so much more easier to get the drama queen  to gulp down a variety of fruits from a bottle in a jiffy.  Yesterday I made kiwi + orange smoothie with fresh pomegranate and apple juice.




I normally use fresh coconut juice, Manuka honey or boxed apple juice to make the smoothie more palatable for everyone, especially the kids.   I find that most boxed juices in the supermarket are adulterated with food conditioner, preservative, flavoring, color and sugar.   The other day, I found a new brand of pure fruit juices  that are sans added water, food additives, preservative and sugar.

Athina is imported from Greece and costs between RM12.90 to RM18.90 a box.  Yup, pure fruit juices are that freaking expensive!  Some of you may want to ask me to make my own fruit juices but it is too time consuming and I do not have the time :(

* fruit smoothie and fruit juice are different.  The former is the whole fruit blended. Nothing is thrown away except for the seeds and core. In other words, you drink the whole fruit and has more nutritional value since you are also eating the fiber.  Fruit juice is just the juice pressed from the fruit.  The fiber and everything else are separated and disposed of.

The below box of Athina pomegranate + apple juice that I bought cost RM18.90 a box. It contains only pomegranate and apple juice and nothing else.








While the orange and kiwi smoothie is for the kids, I made dragon fruit smoothie for the adults.  I pulsed half a red dragon fruit with  the orange kiwi smoothie and apple pomegranate juice to churn out 3 glasses of smooth and refreshing dragon fruit smoothie and even have enough to make 3 frozen ice pops for the girls :)

Dragon Fruits

Alycia's breakfast.





Yellow-skin and white flesh pitaya.

One of my favourite fruits is the red dragon fruit or Pitaya. My gals love them too. We love them so much that we eat them almost every other day. Whenever my gals and I have constipation, dragon fruit always comes to my mind in relieving constipation. So far, I know that there are 2 varieties of dragon fruit, i.e. the red-skin & white-flesh ones and the red-skin and red-flesh ones. Recently, I stumbled from the net a picture of a yellow-skined & white-flesh pitaya. Wow, how unique. I don't know if this yellow-skined ones are already available in Malaysia. So far, I've not seen them in the markets or major supermarkets / hypermarkets.

Here are some of the nutritional claims of dragon fruit :

The red flesh variety is believed to be rich in antioxidants.
The pitaya fruit is rich in vitamins.
The pitaya fruit helps the digestive process.
The pitaya fruit helps prevent colon cancer and diabetes.
The pitaya fruit helps to neutralize toxic substances such as heavy metal, reduce cholesterol levels and high blood pressure.
Consumed regularly the pitaya fruit can help against asthma and cough.