Mangosteen: What is it and is it even healthy to consume?

Understanding various parts of mangosteen from a health aspect is near impossible in less you are a bio chemist. Many articles have been poted on its positive health effects, however, it also seems that there are quite a few things that can cause health issues from consumption. To understand this widely heated debate lets first take a lok at what mangosteen actually is.

The origin of the mangosteen is believed to be in Indonesia. The mangosteen tree is a topical evergreen and the fruit grows in the canopy. The fruit first appears as a pale green, very similar in color to a white grape. As the fruit matures he exocarp, or the rind, changes color to a shade of purple when ripe. Now that we have an idea of what the fruit is and where it's from lets take a look at the nutritional content.

This is where the debate gets interesting. While the aril, or edible portion of the fruit, is tasty it's almost fully devoid of any nutritional content. Most juices actually take extracts from the rind of the fruit, which isn't edible. What the juice mixture includes is xanthones. Xanthones are currently being studied for potential anti disease qualiies. Nothing has been proven in these studies as of yet.

With people constantly looking for different cures for everything possible a thread of skepticism must be held. Just because a fruit grows in a tropical forest and you can eat it doesn't mean its the cure for cancer. Time should be taken to conclusively study the effect tat certain drinks or foods have on people before it's marketed as th next best thing since sliced bread.