My chosen food this month is ‘The tropical Guava’ Psidium guajava. Unfortunately the fruit is not readily available in this country, but the Caribbean and Asia are now countries that many of us now travel to when we go on holiday. So on holiday one of our tasks will be to search out and consume the tropical Guava, as the fruit is highly nutritious.

About the Guava

The fruit is native to tropical America, from Mexico to Peru. There are said to be about 150 species of the genus Psidium but only the tropical guava has become a commercial crop – presumably because it is larger and much firmer than most other species. As a result of Spanish and Portuguese colonists the fruit migrated to Europe, Africa and South East Asia. Tropical guavas are very subject to fruit fly infestation, which limits their production and distribution and thus they tend to have a short shelf life and tend to be consumed locally.

The tropical guava, from a nutritional point of view, is an outstanding fruit in terms of vitamin C content, having an exceptional 165mg of vitamin C per fruit - twice the amount of the kiwifruit, itself an exceptionally good source. Cooked guava products in the form of ‘guava sauce’ (presumably cooked pulp) can still provide you with high amounts of vitamin C, as much as 143mg/100 grams. According to the South African canning industry, some pink guava varieties have an astonishing 400 to 450 mg/100 gms of vitamin C.

One guava (90 gram size) also supplies about 5% of an adults minimum daily Niacin (B3) requirements. A guava of this size also has nearly 800 International Units of vitamin A, and are high in Potassium and dietary fibre. There are reports that high guava fruit consumption results in reduced tri-glyceride levels in the blood (a risk indicator for heart disease) and reduced hypertension, whilst increasing the level of high density lipoprotein (good) cholesterol.

Recipes

‘Guava jelly’ is a classic Jamaican jam and the vitamin C content even though the fruit has been bottled and processed is still very high. The bottled jam ‘guava jelly’ is readily available in specialist shops all over the country. Look at the following web sites for recipes and opinions.

www.caribbeanfoodemporium.com/guavajelly.htm

www.hitchams.suffolk.sch.uk/jamaica/guava_jelly.htm