Detox Your Body with Papaya and Pineapple
This detoxifying papaya and pineapple diet is great for maintaining your health. More specifically, it can help improve your gastrointestinal transit and elimination of retained fluids.
In addition to containing water and fiber, papaya and pineapple contain several nutrients that support the health of your entire body and favor the aforementioned processes.
Below we’ll tell you more about this diet, its two main ingredients, and certain other aspects you should take into consideration.
Why try a detox diet?
Often, when people want to improve their diets to benefit their health but don’t really know where to start, they consider detox diets.
Most detox diets are made up of foods that help relieve bloating and eliminate retained fluids and waste from the body.
They aren’t permanent eating plans, but temporary and of short duration. However, they can help us to take the first steps when it comes to improving our eating habits.
Before starting any diet, we recommend consulting your doctor or a nutritionist. These professionals can indicate with greater precision what’s suitable for you and your body, according to your own individual needs.
You might also be interested to read: 9 Tips to Detox Your Body Naturally
Papaya and pineapple detox diet
No detox diet should exceed three days as they’re extremely restrictive and can put your health at risk.
With this detox diet, where papaya and pineapple are the main ingredients, you should only maintain it for a couple of days, at the most.
While doing the detox, you should also reduce your consumption of red meat, refined flours, saturated fats, junk food, beverages, and processed foods and drinks.
So, what exactly does this diet consist of? It includes light and healthy meals, as well as the consumption of both of these two fruits (natural, not in juices or smoothies) at different times of the day.
This detox diet doesn’t replace your main meals with pineapple and papaya smoothies. Rather, it encourages you to eat these two fruits with your meals (or snacks) to help fill you up. Therefore, it’ll reduce your food cravings which can often lead to the consumption of unhealthy foods, such as junk food, pastries, and candy.
The properties of pineapple
Pineapple is a tropical fruit with a delicious flavor and many health benefits. It provides fiber, water, and carbohydrates. In addition, it contains minerals such as zinc, magnesium, potassium, iron, and vitamins in the B group.
To these components of pineapple, we must add its vitamin C content. In fact, 100 grams of pineapple contains 80 percent of our daily recommended amount. Therefore, it’s a good source of natural antioxidants such as manganese, some flavonoids, and phenolic compounds.
Thanks to these nutrients, pineapple aids digestion and also helps prevent constipation (due to the presence of regulating fiber and pectin). It’s also a diuretic food, which favors the elimination of retained fluids.
These properties facilitate the absorption of sugars, which allows you to maintain control of blood glucose and prevent cardiovascular disease or diabetes. In this sense, it could also help in the process of losing weight.
According to data from the Spanish Nutrition Foundation (FEN), pineapple is a source of iodine, vitamin C, organic acids, and bromelain.
The properties of papaya
Papaya is a tropical fruit well known for its papain content, a type of enzyme that supports digestion processes. This is explained by José Manuel Ávila and Patricia Estalrich from the FEN:
“The intake of papain facilitates digestion, soothes stomach pain and inflammation, diarrhea, constipation, and eliminates intestinal parasites”.
Papaya also contains up to 90 percent water and plenty of vitamins A, C, and E and folate.
Furthermore, the presence of vitamin C in papaya is even higher than in pineapple. In fact, 100 grams of papaya provides us with our daily requirement of this element. As for minerals, it contains good amounts of potassium, magnesium, and copper.
Papaya also aids digestion thanks to the enzyme, papain. It also contains beta-carotene, lycopene, lutein, and zeaxanthin, which means it’s a fruit with many health properties for the entire body.
Fruit can help control food cravings
Thanks to their high fiber content, pineapple and papaya will keep you feeling full. They’re also extremely low in calories, making them perfect for controlling your appetite. This will help you achieve a healthy weight.
To regulate your food cravings, consume three servings of these fruits a day along with a main meal or snack.
You might like to read: Eat a Slice of Papaya Every Day for These Benefits
Other ways to enjoy papaya and pineapple
In a detox diet, you can enjoy pineapple and papaya prepared in different ways. Here are some options to try:
In salads
Add a slightly different touch to your salads by including small pieces of pineapple and papaya to your usual combination of vegetables, and season with a vinaigrette.
As with any detox diet, you need to be a little creative to combat its restrictive nature. So you can let your imagination run wild when you’re adding these two fruits to your meals.
In addition to introducing three servings of papaya and pineapple, during this detox diet, you should opt for light and easily digested dishes. For this reason, we recommend adding broths, vegetable soups, salads, lean meat, white fish, seeds, and whole grains.
You should also make sure you drink plenty of fluids (either water or herbal teas), sleep for long enough, and get plenty of exercise during the day.
Try the pineapple and papaya detox diet for a couple of days
It’s evident that these two fruits contain natural and healing properties so you shouldn’t miss the chance of eating more of them for a couple of days. However, remember that you mustn’t maintain a detox diet for more than a short period of time and that the fruits must be accompanied by a variety of other foods.
Finally, adopting a healthier diet and lifestyle is one of the main keys to taking care of your body and enjoying better health.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- El-Shazly, S.A., Ahmed, M.M., AL-Harbi, M.S. et al. Food Sci Biotechnol “Physilogical and molecular study on the anti-obesity effects of pineapple (Ananas comosus) juice in male Wistar rat” (2018) 27: 1429. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10068-018-0378-1
- Gutiérrez Zavala Ángel, Ledesma Rivero Luis, García García Isabel, Grajales Castillejos Octavio. Capacidad antioxidante total en alimentos convencionales y regionales de Chiapas, México. Rev Cubana Salud Pública [Internet]. 2007 Mar [citado 2018 Oct 27] ; 33( 1 ). Disponible en: http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&;pid=S0864-34662007000100008&lng=es.
- Lim, Y. Y., Lim, T. T., & Tee, J. J. (2007). Antioxidant properties of several tropical fruits: A comparative study. Food Chemistry, 103(3), 1003–1008. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2006.08.038.
- Nutrition Data. Papayas, raw.
- Nutrition Data.Pineapple raw, all varieties.
