Beauty Kitchen: grapefuits for collagen production
We all know how important collagen production is for our skin but did you know that vitamin C supports collagen production and help to keep our skin youthful looking? In fact, vitamin C is one of the most powerful antioxidants, which may help neutralize free radicals and is hence, vital for our health and beauty. There are plenty of foods that contain vitamin C and today, I’m going to share with your about grapefruits plus a really easy recipe to make the slightly bitter fruit more palatable to your taste buds.
Contains beta-carotene too
Fresh grapefruit provides a variety of vitamins and minerals such as vitamin A, potassium, calcium, and dietary fiber on top of vitamin C. In addition, the pink and red grapefruits are also rich in phytonutrients such as lycopene and beta-carotene that can help protect our skin against the sun. So you can say it’s a great skin fruit. However, grapefruit isn’t all that palatable because it has a slightly bitter taste so how can you make it more palatable?
Easy grapefruit brûlée recipe
You can make a grapefruit brûlée! This is so easy to make and super delicious too! But there’s a bit of work involved in preparing the grapefruit. Here, I show you two ways. One is to cut the fruit in halves and the other is to peel the grapefruit and remove by segments.
Peeling and removing by segment takes more time because you need to be careful not to crush the grapefruit but it is tastier because you get to remove the skin, which is really the culprit contributing to the bitterness. If you choose the easy way by cutting the grapefruit in halves, then you just need to use a small knife to cut all the way around the circumference of the grapefruit, until the skin has been completely detached but still leaving the fruit sitting inside the skin.
Baking enhances the juiciness
Next, place all the grapefruits onto a baking tray, drizzle honey and sprinkle some cinnamon or cinnamon sugar on top of the grapefruit and put the tray to bake in the oven at 180°C for around 10 mins or so. Some people like the grapefruits a little burnt but I prefer to just warm the fruit so as not to overcook them.
The thing about warming grapefruits is that they get soften and their juiciness is strongly enhanced. And that’s doubly yummy! You’ll find the honey and cinnamon compliments the tangy taste of the grapefruit extremely well and I’ll say I prefer the peeled grapefruit without the skin. Served warm, the fruit with the mix of honey and cinnamon literally melts in your mouth!
Grapefruit salad
Of course, there is always an easier way out to eating grapefruits and that is, to eat it in its raw form. Now, by cutting the grapefruit into halves and then further into sections and then removing the thicker outer skin is not too troublesome. But because the thinner skin within the grapefruit will still remain, so you’ll still get that bitterness. If you mix with other sweeter fruits and add a dash of cinnamon to the fruit salad, the bitterness is sort of lessened in the mix.
So ready for some grapefruit goodness? And do share with us if you have other ways to eat grapefruits.
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I like taking grapefruit as is or drizzling it with a bit of salt. I’m traumatized by some previous near-fire baking accidents so I rarely touch the oven. ?
wow! I like the pairing with egg! I have been wondering how to eat grapefruit, because I bought them before, but the taste on its own is not really appealing. This is a great post. Very easy to achieve recipe. =)
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I like to eat half a grapefruit for breakfast. Just cut the grapefruit in half, then cut along the segment lines and then along the flesh around where it connects to the white part, all the while making sure just to cut through the flesh and not the skin. This just separates the flesh and makes it easy to scoop out. Then sprinkle the top with sugar. And eat with a spoon.
Oooh thanks for this recipe! will try that one day ? At the moment I am just taking lemon/lime juice to boost my Vit C. Though you should avoid having grapefruit if you are on certain medication to fight colds or other diseases, as there’s a substance in grapefruit that interacts with active ingredients with Western medications. Or wait for about 2-3 hours after taking the medication.
Near-fire accident? Woah…hope you can get over that cos ovens are quite handy. And grapefruit with salt? Wouldn’t that make it more sour or something?
I agree it not so great on its own even though it’s a great fruit…mixing with something sweet would be ideal. But glad you like this. ?
Oh that sounds kind of complicated to me but I may have some idea of what you’re saying. Do you use a special knife for cutting? I find it quite hard to cut especially when the pieces are small.
I didn’t know about the interference with western medications…thanks for highlighting that!
Sounds so good, but if you are after Vit C, then you need to eat it fresh, raw, cooking destroys it all. Or at least for fruits almost all.
Thanks for pointing that out and you’re right, it’s definitely best to eat it fresh. When cooked, I understand that vitamin C dissolves in cooking water so in this case, the option of eating it with the fruit sitting in the skin is quite good cos we get to “drink” up the vitamin c in the liquid.
Actually, it reacts with cholesterol-lowering medication – statins. Grapefruit, pomelo and citrus fruits of this family actually interferes with these medications by amplifying the effects of the medication. This creates unstable results intended through medication and is thus contraindicated. Of course inversely, you can see that citrus fruits improve the alkalinity of our blood and actually helps with cholesterol ?
This may sound weird, but I always try to eat a little of the white part of grapefruit or orange peel. I’ve read it contains 80% of the vitamin C of the whole fruit, plus the pectin reduces cholesterol, helps weight loss, and may be anti cancer. I know its bitter but for some reason that does not deter me!
Thanks Jasmine for explaining that! I guess the best thing to do is to be careful about what you eat when you’re under medications. I hope doctors tell these things to the patients.
Oh the white part? Wow, that sounds weird but I think it make sense as I read about that for orange peel. I like eating dried orange peel but I don’t think it’s of much use but the grapefruit one is particularly bitter and quite hard to ingest.
What I’ve read from several sources (and a doctor once confirmed when discussing the usefulness of drinking packaged orange juice after having donated blood) is that Vitamin C is highly sensitive to air, water and temperature. Meaning that the longer a cut fruit/vegetable or juice is exposed to air/heat/cold the more Vit-C it loses. That’s why we better drink an orange juice immediately after we squeeze it, we better avoid pasteurized juices (they have only a small amount of Vit-C left) and in general prefer raw, fresh products to get our daily Vit-C. Apparently even steaming our veggies for a few minutes will account for a significant loss of Vit-C.
Of course, it’s better to have even that diminished amount of natural Vit-C from none at all, but it’s better to be aware that our preparation method may account for loss of even half its original amount. And then compensate! ?
I’ve never had a grapefruit before. We have large lemons that look almost like that but I don’t think we have those here. I live in the Philippines=)
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Yes, true…just be aware of the preparation. I guess even if the brulee taste nice, it’s a variety but we can try that occasionally instead of daily if it’s vit C we want. ?
No? It’s seasonal here…ours are from Israel, Jaffa brand.
Grapefruit is amazing for skin! I’m doing a Grapefruit/Salmon & Green Veggie ‘diet’ & in just 11 days (so far) my skin is firmer, the puffiness I experienced from eating salty foods is completely gone, my skin is brighter & my acne is fading fast. It’s challenging but I’m loving the results & the weight loss is great too.
Oh wow, 11 days? That takes some discipline and I’m glad it turned out great for you. ?