Summer is here, and that means hot days and refreshing watermelon slices.
Unfortunately, one of the reasons people don’t enjoy fruit as much as they could is they haven’t learned how to pick the freshest, ripest fruit.
With most fruit you can smell it, touch it and check for firmness… but with watermelon there’s another trick – tapping it like a drum. Basically what you’re doing is checking to see the water content of the melon: the higher the better.
So if the sound you get from lightly tapping a watermelon is deep, then you know it’s a good one. If you don’t hear much then move on to the next one.
Another good thing to check is how heavy the watermelon is. A heavier melon will have more water and that’s what you’re looking for!
My Watermelon Gum Story
A few months after I went raw, I remember having a conversation with a colleague about watermelon.
His stance was that watermelon had “no substance” and that you could just as easily chew a piece of watermelon gum and drink a glass of water, and get the same benefits as eating watermelon.
I didn’t say anything because it wasn’t the time or place, but my mind was screaming at the fallacy of this proposition.
There’s no way that chewing gum and drinking a glass of water has the same affect as eating watermelon.
I just know that intuitively, but let’s look at some hard data.
Watermelon has fiber and tons of nutrients that we just don’t appreciate at first glance.
Watermelon Nutritional Information
Here are just a few of the things that watermelon has going for it…
- Good source of Vitamins C and A
- Helps reduce inflammation
- High in antioxidants that fight free radicals
- Contains more lycopene than most fruits and veggies, including tomatoes
- Provides the body with potassium and magnesium
- Very cleansing, alkalinizing, and mineralizing food
Many fruits have a lot of nutrition in the skin or rind, and it’s no different for watermelon… so don’t feel weird eating the white stuff, or juicing the rinds in your morning juice.
Enjoy the seasonal fruit!
Here’s to fresh, tasty, and juicy watermelon! Enjoy the seasonal fruit when it’s here, yum yum!
{ 2 comments }
I love watermelon! It's on my top 10 food to detox naturally list. As you mentioned, it contains lycopene, and I would add that it also contains citruline and promotes an alkaline body. Water-rich food like watermelon also tend to sustain us longer than dry food. I didn't know the trick to pick a perfect whole watermelon though. Thanks for the tip!
Hey Veronica! I love it too. :) It's definitely cleansing and alkaline forming, and you're so right when you say that it will sustain us longer than dry food. Sometimes when we get in our heads about these things we can overanalyze water vs. nutrition density and lose track of the basics.
So glad you liked the tip!
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