Should All College Students be Eating Pomegranates?
Recently, many foods, especially fruits, have been described as "superfoods" by sources in the media as well as our textbook. A company named Pom Wonderful, established in 2002, has achieved great popularity in recent years selling products made from just one item, the pomegranate. Along with blueberries and tomatoes, pomegranates have recently become much more popular due to the beneficial properties that have been attributed to them.
Fruits and vegetables have unique health benefits due to their high antioxidant and phytochemical content. Antioxidants are "compounds that protect other compounds from damaging reactions involving oxygen by themselves reacting with oxygen" while phytochemicals are "compounds in plants that confer color, taste, and other characteristics" such as the ability to alter body processes (Sizer & Whitney, 2012). It is these properties that often prompt the public to label them as "superfoods." In addition, pomegranates are good sources of Vitamin C, Vitamin K, fiber, potassium, folate, copper, and phosphorous, all necessary to achieve a balanced, nutritious diet.
While the pomegranate has been reportedly used as treatment for a variety of issues, from hypertension to diabetes to Alzheimer's disease, it's effect on the body's ability to handle stress is just beginning to be explored. In a study by Desai and Patel, rats fed both pomegranate peel and pomegranate juice were compared to rats without any exposure to pomegranates. The rats were subjected to a forced swimming endurance test to determine their body's ability to withstand stress and results showed that the rats that had been fed pomegranate products proved to be more resistant to the effects of stress. These results allowed the researchers to label pomegrante as an adaptogen, or substance that allows the body to withstand stress without affecting its physiological functions. Desai and Patel (2013) write that "adaptogens put organs into a state of non-specific heightened resistance in order to resist stressor and adapt to extraordinary challenges".
It is studies like Desai and Patel's that are actually relevant to our everyday lives that we should be most interested in. I found these results to be very relevant because, as college students, we are subjected to a wide variety of stressors in our daily lives. I believe most college students would be more than willing to eat pomegranates if they could avoid getting a cold during finals week or to remain healthy through their entire sports season.
However, studies performed on rats are not completely applicable to us because humans may not react in precisely the same way. While pomegranates are beneficial to your health simply through the nutrients they provide, I would not count on them to miraculously relieve all the negative effects of stress from your life.
Until further studies can be done, I would recommend eating pomegranates simply because of their delicious taste and known antioxidant properties. It may take several years to determine if pomegranates do indeed possess anti stress properties for humans and until then I do not predict that they will become overwhelmingly popular on college campuses. However, I have included a video that shares several more nutrition facts about pomegranates as well as a variety of uses for them in recipes that may allow the everyday student to make pomegranates a more commonly eaten fruit.
Sizer, F.S. and Whitney, E. (2012). Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies. United States: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Desai, S., & Patel, E. (2013). Comparative Screening of Adaptogenic Activity of Punica Granatum (Pomegranate) Peel and Juice. International Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences Review & Reasearch, 19(1), 27-30.
My daughter loves pomegranates and we get them at the store any time we can for her. When she was younger her whole face and hands would be stained purple because she ate so many of them. We have never tried the juices, and I wonder if they have the same benefits the fruit by itself has. If it actually does lower stress levels in humans it would be great for everyone, and a good way to decrease stress. I look forward to finding future studies about this and seeing how it does. For the moment I think I will increase the times we get them when we go to the store.
ReplyDeleteDane has taken the words out of my mouth! I also anticipate more research about superfoods, particularly on fruits and vegetables. I think that the marketability of POMwonderful products may increase to include more traditional college students if the price were more accessible. I did a quick price check for buying the juice in bulk and the unit cost was in the neighborhood of forty-four cents per ounce! For those of us who like the taste of them or are interested in trying new fruits or vegetables I think we should take a page out of Dane's playbook and consider the whole food rather than just the juice.
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