Quick Answer
Both commercial and wild Pineapples have seeds. However, commercial Pineapples have gone through processes, genetic modification, and hybridization that have bred the seeds out of most fruits, so you are unlikely to see them. Wild Pineapples have clusters of fruits with between 50 and 75 seeds between each cluster.
Fruits are some of the nicest and easiest foods to eat on earth, being that they are generally found everywhere and that they have tender, soft flesh.
Yet, fruits can also be some of the most annoying foods to eat, due to the seeds that they have within them, and some of these seeds are huge.
Mango, peaches, plums, they all have huge seeds or stones inside them that make them a nightmare to eat.
They get in the way and your teeth feel like they are broken when you bite into them.
As such, we tend to enjoy the fruits that don’t have them, but it isn’t always obvious which fruits these are.
Take pineapples, for example. Do pineapples have seeds?
And if they don’t, why is that the case? In this article, we are going to take a closer look at pineapples and see whether they have seeds.
What Are Pineapples?
Pineapples are tropical fruits that are native to South America, though they are now commonly grown in the Caribbean, the Philippines, Thailand and Latin America as well.
They are from a family of plants called the Bromeliaceae and are probably the most well-known member of this family.
These plants are actually a small scrub that is similar to long grass, but with wider leaves that are also thicker.
From this thicket of leaves, the Pineapple fruit will grow from the center on top of a thick stem.
This fruit comes about when the unpollinated flowers of the central stem fuse together to form a multiple fruit, which is why the top looks like it could be part of a flower.
In their native lands, Pineapples have been eaten for thousands of years, with archaeological evidence of their consumption dating back to 1200 BC in Peru and 200 BC in Mexico.
While we don’t have much archaeological evidence for its consumption this far back in other areas, due to it being so widespread as to be a part of almost every southern American culture’s diet by the 1400s, we can infer this.
By the 17th century, the Pineapple had been introduced to Europe, and it had become a prized status symbol.
This led to its cultivation on a mass level, and by the mid-1800s its consumption had spread around the globe.
Nowadays, you can buy Pineapple in almost every country on earth, with many of them growing it.
Do Commercial Pineapples Have Seeds?
The short answer to this question is no. Commercial pineapples do not grow seeds.
The long answer is that most commercial Pineapples don’t grow seeds, due to them being genetically modified and hybridized among different populations to produce fruits that either don’t grow seeds or are less likely to.
Generally, it has more to do with the genetic process, as pineapples in their natural state, do not produce seeds to maturation.
The Pineapple fruit itself forms from unpollinated flowers that have merged together into a multiple fruit.
This means that if there is a pollinated flower, it won’t become a Pineapple, except by accident.
The genetic modifications and hybridization means that this is far less likely as well.
These aspects not only help to stop the formation of seeds, but also help to make the fruit more appealing to us as consumers.
Modern commercial pineapples are much sweeter, much juicier, and much more resilient to various environmental problems and weather conditions, so they can be grown in a lot of different places.
These Pineapples also have a longer shelf life, which makes them better for transit across the globe.
Occasionally, you may see a few tiny black pineapple seeds within the fruit, but this is rare, and they are without a purpose, considering that they are not designed for reproductive purposes.
As such, you can throw them out at your leisure, but know that they will probably not grow should you decide to plant them (if that is what you want to do).
Do Wild Pineapples Have Seeds?
Wild Pineapples are very, very different to commercial Pineapples.
For starters, commercial Pineapples are from a stock of Pineapple that was grown by native peoples, meaning that they have been domesticated for quite a while.
This is why they generally don’t have too many seeds compared to the amount of fruit that they produce.
Since humans have been breeding them selectively for thousands of years, these two species have diverged from one another, and it is obvious to see this when you look at wild Pineapple.
The leaves are slimmer with eh edges rising up, creating a trough for water to flow directly to the center of the plant and hydrating it.
The fruits are different as well. There are around 50 to 75 distinctly different tiny fruits that cluster together and are a bright orange-yellow.
The only similar feature they have to a commercial Pineapple is that each has a little barb at the end.
These fruits have an abundance of seeds in them, up to 50 from one cluster of fruits normally, as they are serving the fruit’s original purpose which is to spread seeds via bird ingestion.
These seeds look vastly different from the seeds you will get from the store for commercial Pineapples, being far, far smaller.
Although they are quite rare to see in most areas, these little plants have managed to continue surviving and thriving throughout the Americas, with many people still recognizing that they are successful plants.
Can You Eat Pineapple Seeds?
If you happen to cut into a commercial Pineapple and see a bunch of seeds, you may be wondering whether these seeds are edible.
After all, why go to all the trouble of breeding them out of the fruit if they weren’t just trouble?
Honestly, you can eat the Pineapple seeds if you want.
They are not really all that tasty, and you really get nothing from them, but you can eat them if you really want to.
The seeds themselves are non-toxic to humans, and they are safe.
The main reason for breeding the seeds out of Pineapples was purely an aesthetic decision, much like making carrots orange or having uniform size food in a supermarket.
People tend to not like having seeds in their fruit, and if producers can find a way to breed it out, they normally will.
The less effort that goes into eating a juicy fruit, the more people tend to buy them.
Obviously, this won’t work for every fruit – you try breeding a stone out of a mango – but they managed to do it for Pineapples, even if it was for a purely aesthetic reason.
If you do find seeds in a Pineapple, though, there is no cause for alarm, and you can continue eating your Pineapple as you wish – even the seeds if you want to.
As for wild Pineapple, that is slightly different.
The seeds of wild Pineapples are incredibly acidic and can cause a burning sensation on the lips, tongue, and throat should they be eaten when raw and undiluted by another substance.
This is also the same for the fruit of the wild Pineapple, although it can be eaten more safely.
However, wild Pineapple is usually quite bitter and will still need diluting to eat it. On a very rare occasion it can be quite nice, but this is very rare.
As such, you should really try to cook or dilute wild Pineapple whenever you can, before you decide to eat it. There are some benefits, though, like the juice of wild Pineapple.
It has a great medicinal value that can treat ulcers, internal parasites, and fevers, as well as working as a good meat tenderizer.
Therefore, if you plan to use wild Pineapple, stick to making it a juice more than anything.
Conclusion:
Pineapples do contain seeds, as it is the way that they spread. However, commercial Pineapples have gone through a lot of changes as they have been cultivated and now their fruits bear less and less seeds within them. This makes them more appealing to consumers. Wild Pineapples still produce a lot of seeds per cluster of fruits.
Through this blog I hope to help others learn the basics and more intricate details of cooking. I know from personal experience how frustrating it can be to cook a meal, only to realize you are missing one ingredient from your list. This is why I love to write articles chatting readers through some great substitutes that can be used in an emergency.
I hope you will find this blog useful, and that it will help you to develop your culinary skills, to help you cook up a storm!
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Tuesday 3rd of December 2024
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