benefits of pears

The fiber in a pear helps keep your heart healthy and might reduce your risk of certain types of cancer as well. A pear a day might also keep you from having a stroke. A 2011 article published by the American Heart Association reports that eating one pear a day can reduce your risk of stroke by as much as 52 percent. Pears might also cut your risk of dying from heart disease. A 2007 article published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition notes that the flavonoids in pears might lower your risk of heart disease, as well as death associated with heart disease.

Fresh pears are your healthiest choice, but canned pears can also be beneficial to your health. If you eat canned pears, choose versions packed in 100 percent fruit juice rather than syrup because they contain no added sugar. Chop a pear into bitesized pieces and add it to a fruit salad, or stir the pieces into a carton of lowfat yogurt. Replace the jelly in your peanut butter sandwich with thin slices of pear, or add pear slices to a tossed green salad. Cut a pear into quarters and brush it with a small amount of butter.

Pears are naturally high in vitamins C and K, as well as nutrients such as copper

Pears are an excellent source of dietary fiber, and fiber is good for the heart. Studies have shown that fiber can lower levels of bad cholesterol by binding to bile salts

Although few studies have been done on the subject, doctors generally consider pears to be a hypoallergenic fruit because they are less likely than other fruits to produce an allergic response when eaten. For this reason, pears are generally considered

The English word

According to Pear Bureau Northwest, about 3000 known varieties of pears are grown worldwide.The pear is normally propagated by grafting a selected variety onto a rootstock, which may be of a pear variety or quince. Quince rootstocks produce smaller trees, which is often desirable in commercial orchards or domestic gardens. For new varieties the flowers can be crossbred to preserve or combine desirable traits. The fruit of the pear is produced on spurs, which appear on shoots more than one year old.

Summer and autumn cultivars of Pyrus communis, being climacteric fruits, are gathered before they are fully ripe, while they are still green, but snap off when lifted. In the case of the Passe Crassane, long the favored winter pear in France, the crop is traditionally gathered at three different times: the first a fortnight or more before it is ripe, the second a week or ten days after that, and the third when fully ripe. The first gathering will come into eating last, and thus the season of the fruit may be considerably prolonged.

Pears are consumed fresh, canned, as juice, and dried. The juice can also be used in jellies and jams, usually in combination with other fruits or berries. Fermented pear juice is called perry or pear cider. Pears ripen at room temperature. They will ripen faster if placed next to bananas in a fruit bowl. Refrigeration will slow further ripening. Pear Bureau Northwest offers tips on ripening and judging ripeness: Although the skin on Bartlett pears changes from green to yellow as they ripen, most varieties show little color change as they ripen. Because pears ripen from the inside out, the best way to judge ripeness is to Check the Neck: apply gentle thumb pressure to the neck or stem end of the pear.

Pears grow in the sublime orchard of Alcinous, in Odyssey vii: Therein grow trees, tall and luxuriant, pears and pomegranates and appletrees with their bright fruit, and sweet figs, and luxuriant olives. Of these the fruit perishes not nor fails in winter or in summer, but lasts throughout the year.A Partridge in a Pear Tree is the first gift in The Twelve Days of Christmas cumulative song, this verse is repeated twelve times in the song.