Papaya fruit nutrition facts
Papaya fruit s another gift of Mexicans to this world. This exotic fruit, also popular as pawpaw, is packed with numerous health benefiting nutrients. It is one of the favorites of fruit lovers for its nutritional, digestive, and medicinal properties. It probably thought to have originated in the Central Americas.
Papaya plant is grown extensively all over the tropical regions under cultivated farms for its fruits as well as for latex, papain, an enzyme that found wide applications in the food industry.
Botanically, the plant belongs to Caricaceae family of flowering plants, in the genus; Carica.
Papaya tree bears many spherical or pear-shaped fruits clumped near its top end of the trunk. They come in variety of sizes ranging from 6-20 inches in length and 4-12 inches in diameter. An average-sized papaya weighs about a pound. The fruit is said to ripen when it yeilds to gentle thumb pressure, and its skin turned amber to orange hue.
Inside, the fruit features numerous black peppercorn like seeds, encased in a mucin coat, at its hollow central cavity as in melons. The flesh is orange in color with either yellow or pink hues, soft in consistency and has deliciously sweet, musky taste with rich flavor.
Babaco fruit is closely related to papaya, and has similar appearance and flavor as papaya.