What is passion fruit?
Passion fruit is the fruit of the passionflower vine, a type of passionflower. It has a tough rind and a juicy, seed-filled center.
There are several types in different sizes and colors. Purple and yellow varieties are the most common and include:
- Passionflower. These are small round or oval fruits with purple skins.
- Passionflower. This species is round or oval with a yellow rind and is usually slightly larger than the purple variety.
Although they are tropical fruits, some varieties can survive in subtropical climates.
For this reason, they are grown all over the world and crops can be found in Asia, Europe, Australia, South, and North America.
Passion fruit is highly nutritious
Passion fruit is a good source of nutrients, especially fiber, vitamin C, and provitamin A.
One purple passion fruit contains:
- Calories: 17
- Fiber: 2 grams
- Vitamin C: 9% of the Daily Value (DV)
- Vitamin A: 8% of DV
- Iron: 2% of DV
- Potassium: 2% of DV
While this may not seem like much, keep in mind that these are the values for small fruit with only 17 calories. Calorie for calories, it's a good source of fiber, vitamin C, and vitamin A.
It's also rich in beneficial plant compounds, including carotenoids and polyphenols.
In fact, one study found that passion fruit is rich in polyphenols compared to many other tropical fruits such as bananas, lychees, mangoes, papayas, and pineapples.
Additionally, passion fruit provides a small amount of iron.
Your body usually doesn't absorb iron well from plants. However, the iron in passion fruit contains a good amount of vitamin C, which is known to enhance iron absorption.
Passion fruit is very popular among coffee flavors and has a very unique taste of it.