Fruit Salad
Fruit salad is a dish consisting of various kinds of fruit, sometimes served in a liquid, either in their own juices or a syrup. When served as an appetizer or as a dessert, a fruit salad is sometimes known as a fruit cocktail or fruit cup. In different forms fruit salad can be served as an appetizer, a side-salad, or a dessert.
Description
[Please insert Fruit Bowls image here — width: 600 pixels; alignment: right]
There are a number of home recipes for fruit salad that contain different kinds of fruit, or that use a different kind of sauce other than the fruit's own juice or syrup. Common ingredients used in fruit salads include strawberries, pineapple, honeydew, watermelon, grapes, and kiwifruit. Various recipes may call for the addition of nuts, fruit juices, certain vegetables, yogurt, or other ingredients.
One variation is a Waldorf-style fruit salad, which uses a mayonnaise-based sauce. Other recipes use sour cream (such as in ambrosia), yogurt or even mustard as the primary sauce ingredient. A variation on fruit salad uses whipped cream mixed in with many varieties of fruits (usually a mixture of berries), and also often include miniature marshmallows. Rojak, a Malaysian fruit salad, uses a spicy sauce with peanuts and shrimp paste. In the Philippines, fruit salads are popular party and holiday fare, usually made with buko, or young coconut, and condensed milk in addition to other canned or fresh fruit.
Mexico has a popular variation of the fruit salad called Bionico which consists of various fruits drenched in condensed milk and sour cream mix.
There is also an extended variety of fruit salads in Moroccan cuisine, often as part of a kemia, a selection of appetizers or small dishes analogous to Spanish tapas or eastern Mediterranean mezze.
A fruit salad ice cream is also commonly manufactured, with small pieces of real fruit embedded in, flavored either with juices from concentrate, fruit extracts, or artificial chemicals.
Nutrition information
A nutritional analysis of a typical fruit salad without added sugar is shown below. The breakdown for a 250 gram serving (approximately one half pound) is 300 calories from 2 grams of fat, 70 grams (net) of carbohydrate and 3 grams of protein.
[Please insert Nutrition Facts image here — width: 400 pixels; alignment: none]
| Serving size | 2 (250 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Amount per serving | 300 calories | |
| Item | Amount | % Daily Value |
| Total fat | 2 g | 3% |
| Saturated fat | 0 g | 0% |
| Trans fat | 0 g | 0% |
| Cholesterol | 0 mg | 0% |
| Sodium | 40 mg | 2% |
| Total carbohydrate | 75 g | 27% |
| Dietary fiber | 5 g | 18% |
| Total sugars | 70 g | n/a |
| Includes 0 g added sugars | 0 g | 0% |
| Sugar alcohol | 1 g | n/a |
| Protein | 3 g | 6% |
| Vitamin D | 1 mcg | 4% |
| Calcium | 130 mg | 10% |
| Iron | 0.9 mg | 4% |
| Potassium | 705 mg | 15% |
| *The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a serving of food contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice. | ||
[Please insert horizontal rule image here — width: 800 pixels; alignment: none]
Health benefits of a high fiber diet
Dietary fibers are found in fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Dietary fiber is found in plants, typically eaten whole, raw or cooked, although fiber can be added to make dietary supplements and fiber-rich processed foods. Grain bran products have the highest fiber contents, such as crude corn bran (79 g per 100 g) and crude wheat bran (43 g per 100 g), which are ingredients for manufactured foods. Medical authorities, such as the Mayo Clinic, recommend adding fiber-rich products to the Standard American Diet (SAD) which is rich in processed and artificially sweetened foods, with minimal intake of vegetables and legumes.
Plant sources of fiber
Some plants contain significant amounts of soluble and insoluble fiber. For example, plums and prunes have a thick skin covering a juicy pulp. The skin is a source of insoluble fiber, whereas soluble fiber is in the pulp. Grapes also contain a fair amount of fiber.
