A Shot of Pomegranate

My first photo experiment with Pomegranate.
It was a lot of fun and the colour burst is superb.

The best part?
For once - I actually do love the colour produced by these photos which were taken with flash!

About the fruit...
"The pomegranate (Punica granatum) is a fruit-bearing deciduous (definition: shedding or losing foliage at the end of the growing season) shrub or small tree growing to between five and eight meters tall." -- from Wikipedia
"These plants originated in Afghanistan and Persia, in what is now Iran." -- from Gardening Australia - Fact Sheet: Pomegranate

The pomegranate arils (seed casings) of this particular one that I had tasted almost sweet with a little bit of a zing and the seeds tasting a tiny bit bitter. It has lots of water which makes it great freshener after dinner. Plus, it works well in keeping my mouth busy for 20 minutes or so to consume half the fruit and hence stop me from grazing on other more calorific food, only at the low cost of 70 calories per 100 grams of the arils.
(P.S. I'm estimating ~150 grams of arils within a medium sized pomegranate - almost similar to the size of a medium thick skin orange)

Wikipedia mentioned that "separating the red arils is simplified by performing this task in a bowl of water, wherein arils sink and pulp floats." And, according to the Gardening Australia Pomegranate fact sheet - "In the autumn split open the fruit to find rows of red seeds, eat the red flesh surrounding these, but spit the seeds out. It's a little bit complicated, but the fruit is truly delicious." I was being a little barbaric - bite through the white bits and just chew the arils (along with the tiny seeds). Oops! :P

Recently - more and more people are recommending the Pomegranate Juice as beverage with many health benefits (11 Health Benefits of Pomegranate Juice). More research is needed to validate the preliminary research findings though.

Availability? According to the Wikipedia - "In the Northern Hemisphere, the fruit is typically in season from September to February. In the Southern Hemisphere, it is in season from March to May."

If you're curious, here's a list of a few nurseries in Australia which grow Pomegranates: Pomegranates and Pomegranate Nurseries in Australia. I normally start seeing them at Coles Supermarkets around the beginning of summer - which now makes sense - because the Nurseries page mentioned that Pomegranate likes sunny warm spots!

Well - enough talking about it - go and try it out if you haven't!

Will TasteSpotting accept this entry?
I sure hope so!