The pineapple is no pushover. The sweet yet tangy fruit can affect your tongue and lips because of bromelain enzymes, which break down proteins in your mouth and essentially attack your tongue, cheeks and lips upon contact. However, holding a bit of pineapple in your mouth won't cause you any lasting harm. Your saliva fights back for you, and any damaged cells easily regenerate. Bromelain is most plentiful in the pineapple’s stem, although it's found throughout the fruit. Besides making your mouth tingle, bromelain is also an important component in some very tasty marinades. Pineapple is often used to tenderize beef, pork, and chicken, since the bromelain helps to break down the meat’s tough fibers.
Big, bad bromelain:
- Powdered bromelain is also used to treat inflammation, swelling, indigestion and excessive blood clotting.
- Fun fact: If you put a slice of pineapple into Jell-O during the cool-down phase, the gelatin will never gel. It will remain in liquid form, because bromelain breaks down the gelatin.
- Although pineapple is associated with Hawaii, it originated in Brazil. Christopher Columbus first encountered it in the Caribbean in 1493.