Why Pineapple Hurts Your Mouth (and How to Stop It)
Anyone who has made their way through a pile of fresh pineapple most likely felt the bite. Too much fruit can make your mouth feel like a scratch, which is a betrayal given that the fruit is supposed to be “good for you.”
It turns out that a small enzyme known as “bromelain”, which loves to break down amino acids and proteins, is to blame. This makes the extracted enzyme a very good meat tenderizer, and your mouth is – unfortunately, I must say – made from meat. (Bromelain is also sold as a “health supplement” online and in various health food stores, but it has only one approved clinical use – removing dead tissue from severe burns.)
Why does bromelain hurt?
Bromelain eats away at the mucous membrane of the mouth and then acts on exposed proteins. This is awful, but not permanently harmful, as your mouth can bounce back pretty quickly if you don’t keep eating fresh pineapple after fresh pineapple without interruption. The enzyme acts more strongly on some people than on others, so it is possible that you have never experienced this particular sensation (and it is quite possible that I envy).
How do you prevent pineapples from hurting your mouth?
For those familiar with this feeling, what to do? Some anecdotal information (including the episode “Ugly Delicious”) seems to indicate that rapid soaking in salt water can weaken the enzyme’s action. This article from Science Meets Food states that dissolved sodium chloride reverses the polarity of the enzyme, which “destabilizes the protein and denatures its structure.” Michael Tunick, Ph.D., associate professor of clinical faculty of the culinary arts and food science at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said Food & Wine, the salt “makes bromelain to take action, so at the time when the pineapple reaches your mouth, the enzyme is ready. inactivated ”and that“ briefly dipping fresh pineapple in a salt water solution is the best way to improve the contact between salt and bromelain ”.
But there hasn’t been much research into exactly how much salt it takes to affect bromelain. Not all pineapples contain the same amount of water, sugar, or bromelain, but soaking the fruit in saline definitely won’t hurt. I soaked about half of the pineapple in a solution of two cups of tap water and one teaspoon of table salt for about a minute before eating it, and while I felt a slight tingling sensation in the corners of my mouth and tongue, it was not a painful experience. Then I ate some pineapple that hadn’t been soaked in salt water and the tingling sensation got a little stronger, but it could have been the cumulative effect of eating a lot of pineapple.
However, there are a couple of other things you can do to influence the amount of bromelain that gets into your mouth. To begin with, always make sure you remove the nucleus that has the highest concentration of the enzyme. Heat also deactivates the enzyme, so roasting, grilling, and baking are all good strategies (and grilled pineapple is really good). Finally, combining fruit with dairy products covering the tongue can help. Yogurt, crème fraiche and other similar foods not only calm the taste, but give the enzyme another protein to work on, which we hope to take away from your tongue. (And if all else fails, you can always eat canned pineapple; bromelain has no chance against the canning process.)