I intentionally purchased a couple of pink dragon fruit from the market because I had not eaten one before. And as I shared with other vendors about the dragon fruit I would soon open and eat, they were excited for me. Everyone I talked with likes eating dragon fruit: eating the inside as a fruit or eating the outside cooked as a vegetable.
Dragon fruit grows on a cactus. The plant is a climbing cactus, a vine with thick three-sided stems that climb up trees, walls, and posts. The plant grows up and along a long small wall at my favorite beach. I’ve never seen the fruit, but I have seen the flowers bloom.
The flowers of the dragon fruit cactus are among the largest flowers in the cactus family. Each flower opens in the evening and lasts only one night, closing the next morning. I have seen the flower early in the morning, before the flower closed. In the wild, moths and bats pollinate the flowers at night. Bees also visit in the early morning while the flowers are still open. I once filmed a bee inside a dragon fruit flower. Where pollinators are missing, people often pollinate the flowers by hand.
The name dragon fruit comes from the fruit's bright skin and green scales, which look like the skin of a dragon. A young dragon fruit is green all over, and the skin turns bright pink or red as the fruit ripens. The scales often keep green tips even when the fruit is ripe. The inside of the fruit, called the flesh, can be white, red, or pink. The tiny black seeds are eaten along with the flesh.
Red and pink flesh gets its color from pigments called betalains. A pigment is a compound that gives something its color. Betalains are the same family of pigments that make beets red. White flesh does not contain betalains.
Dragon fruit is mostly water, but dragon fruit also provides fiber, vitamin C, and iron.
You are welcome to experience dragon fruit.
Stacy 🌺
Information in this post comes from my learning and research.
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I share my experiences and my perspective. Eating and healing look different for everyone. If you are struggling with food or your relationship with your body, please find support. You don’t have to do this alone.