Cooking with pomegranates
Claire Borg has some ideas on how to use the crop of the month. Pomegranates are a luxury food anywhere that they don’t grow, and in their Middle Eastern home they are a key ingredient in many popular dishes. So make the most of what comes to us naturally and easily - and inexpensively.
Pomegranates and health
Brimming with vitamins A, C and E, and with iron, the pomegranate has been cultivated since prehistoric times. It is native to the Middle East, but has become naturalized throughout the southern Mediterranean since ancient times. It is now cultivated in every part of the world with a temperate climate. The pomegranate features richly in mythology, having been a source of fascination for millennia. It is used as a symbol of life, birth, regeneration, eternal life, and even death. It is also possibly the original ‘forbidden fruit’. “Iranians believe that Eve was tempted with a pomegranate, rather than an apple, in the Garden of Eden, said Margaret Shaida, culinary historian and author of The Legendary Cuisine of Persia. “King Cyrus, who created the Persian Empire, was reputed to have wished for a number of good generals equal to the number of seeds in a pomegranate. Later again, the Prophet Mohammed is said to have urged his followers to eat the fruit in the belief that it purges the system of envy and hatred.”
The ancient Egyptians were buried with pomegranates in the hope of rebirth, while in Greek mythology, Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, was offered an aril (seed-sac) of the fruit by Hades, god of the underworld. Tempted by its brilliant jewel-like appearance, she took it, condemning herself to spending part of each year with Hades in his kingdom. In more contemporary Greek weddings, the pomegranate is used as a symbol of fertility.
The fruit has long been used in folk medicine in the Middle East and India. Healers have used the bark of the pomegranate tree, its leaves, and the rind and pulp of the fruit to cure a great range of ailments. “When I used to live in Iran, I was given pomegranates as a cure for an upset stomach,”
said Ms Shaida. “There, pregnant women eat lots of pomegranates because they are rich in iron. No Iranian kitchen is without a bottle of pomegranate juice, or the fruit when it is in season.”
A rich Iranian dish pronounced ‘fesanjan’ is made from ground walnuts, fried until brown, which are added to fried onions and duck or chicken, along with pomegranate-based sauce.
Pomegranates are a ‘superfood’ which can protect the heart
Adapted from a BBC News report
Scientists in Israel have shown that drinking a daily glass of pomegranate juice can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. “Pomegranate juice contains the highest antioxidant capacity compared to other juices, red wine and green tea,”
said Professor Michael Aviram, who led the team. Antioxidants are the naturally occurring substances in plants that protect the body from free radicals, which are the ‘bad’ chemicals in the bloodstream. Free radicals alter cholesterol in a process called oxidation, and this is thought to accelerate the hardening of our arteries. The research was carried out at the Rambam Medical Centre in Haifa. It demonstrated that pomegranate juice slows down cholesterol oxidation by almost half. It also reduces the retention of LDL, which is the ‘bad’ cholesterol that produces atherosclerotic lesions - the fatty deposits which narrow the arteries and cause heart disease.
Pomegranates ‘slow tumour growth’
Adapted from a BBC News report
Tests on mice at the University of Wisconsin have shown that pomegranate juice slows down prostate cancer cell growth. “Our study adds to growing evidence that pomegranates contain very powerful agents against cancer, particularly prostate cancer,” lead researcher Professor Hasan Mukhtar said. Prostate cancer is now the most common cancer diagnosed in men in Britain - every year there are 30,000 new diagnoses and 10,000 deaths from prostate cancer there. Previous research has shown that pomegranate extract is effective against tumours in mouse skin. The Wisconsin team first tested the juice on laboratory cultures of human prostate cancer cells. They found that the juice extract killed the cancer cells, and that the higher the dose, the more cells died. Next, the team injected the mice with human prostate cancer cells. One group of mice was given pure water, and two other groups were given water supplemented with 0.1% and 0.2% pomegranate juice. The progress of the cancer was significantly slowed in the mice that received the higher concentration of pomegranate juice. Their blood contained decreased levels of prostate-specific antigen, a marker commonly used to monitor prostate cancer. The tumours grew much faster in the mice which were given only water. Pomegranates are now being tested for the treatment and prevention of cancer in people.
Dr Chris Hiley, of The Prostate Cancer Charity, in the UK, said: “This is useful research, as it might well benefit men who may get prostate cancer and those who already have it. It is still early to know what, if anything, the science will tell us about potential effects in men, but it is not too soon to point out that diet is plainly significant in the development of prostate cancer. As there are sound reasons for adopting a healthy diet with a generally increased intake of fruit and vegetables, why not consider the pomegranate and its juice as one way to achieve this?”