What Makes Pineapple Juice Good for Women?

Pineapples are a sweet, tart fruit filled with highly beneficial nutrients. From pineapple upside-down cake to pineapple juice, there are many ways to eat this healthy fruit. Pineapple juice is even more beneficial when you process parts of the fruit that would otherwise be considered inedible, like its core and rind. Half a cup of fresh pineapple juice has over a third of the daily recommended amount of vitamin C for women — certainly a healthy way to start your day.

Pineapple juice benefits women through its rich vitamin C content and the enzyme bromelain. Vitamin C can improve bone and eye health in women, as well as the health of their infants, while bromelain can help resolve menstrual disorders and reduce bloating and pain during cycles.

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That there's such a wide variety of nutrients carried by this delicious fruit means that there are many benefits of pineapple juice for women. Nutrients can, however, vary between commercial products, especially those from concentrate.

According to the Handbook of Functional Beverages and Human Health, various factors can change the nutritional content of pineapple juice, including where the pineapples were farmed, when they were harvested and how they've been processed.

It's always best to drink fresh juice when possible. In particular, the handbook recommends the use of ripe pineapples for juicing purposes. Juicing a whole pineapple yields about 71 to 76 percent of its weight, depending on the juicer you're using. In every 100 grams of fresh pineapple that you juice, you'll find quite a few vitamins, including vitamins A, C, E and K as well as several B-complex vitamins.

Pineapple juice also has various minerals, including calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium and zinc. In addition to these minerals and vitamins in pineapple juice, you can also find fiber, protein and a protease called bromelain. Bromelain is an enzyme found in fibrous regions of the pineapple, such as the stem, skin and core.

Although pineapple juice is healthy, when you juice a fruit, you usually toss the pulp. Throwing away fruit pulp results in loss of certain nutrients. This is particularly the case for fiber.

A comparison of raw pineapple and different juices showed that fiber content went from an original amount of 1.4 grams for every 100 grams to between 0.1 and 0.7 grams, depending on the juice. If you're after foods with high soluble fiber content, you may want to choose whole fruits over juices. You'll always get more vitamins and minerals when eating raw fruit.

With so many vitamins and minerals, pineapple juice is definitely considered a healthy beverage for everyone. However, the main vitamin you'll consume when drinking pineapple juice is vitamin C. This vitamin is known to have a variety of positive effects on women's health, including:

• Improved bone mineral density. Vitamin C, especially in conjunction with estrogen therapy and calcium supplements, can improve bone mineral density in post-menopausal people.

• Improved eye health with age. Long-term consumption of vitamin C can protect women from age-related lens opacities.

• Improved lung development and function in the children of smokers. Vitamin C is able to decrease the negative effects of smoking in pregnant people and decrease wheezing even a year after their child's birth.

• Preventing cancer and providing protective effects for women who are at high risk for certain cancers.

The manganese in pineapple juice is also good for women's health. There isn't too much manganese lost in the juicing process—the total value typically only goes down to about 0.99 milligrams for every 100 grams of juice.

Manganese is important for bone development, metabolism, wound healing and other important bodily functions. It can help prevent bone diseases like osteoporosis in women, as well as the development of diabetes. Women should consume at least 1.8 grams of manganese per day. This means that half of your dietary allowance of manganese could easily come from pineapple juice!

Pineapple juice also contains other nutrients that are beneficial to women. In particular, However, there are some notable benefits of pineapple juice for women found in bromelain.

Since bromelain is primarily found in parts of the pineapple you might not want to eat — like the core — juicing the pineapple is an excellent way to extract this enzyme. The benefits of bromelain for women include correcting menstrual disorders, providing pain relief during menstrual cycles, and reducing bloating during pregnancy and menstruation.

‌Read more:‌ Fresh Pineapple Juice and Bromelain