Adventures in Produce: Tasting Dragon fruit

  When deciding on what produce to try, I immediately knew I wanted to try dragon fruit. It's always caught my eye, it looks fun and interesting. It's the same shape as a pear and the smell even cutting into it isn't very strong. I like kiwi, but the black seeds aren't my favorite and that made me hesitant about trying dragon fruit. The color itself catches your attention when you're in the produce section. It's bright pink, and has flaps on the outside that are yellow and gives it a unique look. Unfortunately I wasn't able to go a farmer's market, I picked this up during my weekly HEB grocery run. 

According to Joyce Hendley, who writes for Harvard Health Publishing. Dragon fruit is a native cactus plant to Central and South America. The pink dragon fruit is actually considered "red"and the seeds inside are edible. Joyce describes the dragon fruit to taste somewhere between a pear and kiwi. She claims that the fruit is low in calorie and packed with nutrients, along with antioxidants Antioxidants are good for us and have been linked to lowering the risk in some heart diseases, diabetes and some cancers. 

I decided to try the dragon fruit completely by itself, I have never tried it before so I wanted to give it a fair shot. I cut it in half and revealed all of the seeds; it's a very pretty fruit!         The outside feels a little rubbery, and the flaps feel the same, not sharp or pointy. The inside is white, and covered with the small, black, and edible seeds. The dragon fruit was very easy to cut, it was smooth and you didn't have to put a lot of pressure on the knife. There isn't much of a smell that came from the dragon fruit, and the white inside is soft yet firm. The inside looked exactly what I have seen online. I did think the outside of the fruit was going to be more firm than it ended up being. The fruit is much prettier in person, I almost didn't want to cut it into pieces!

I cut myself a few pieces and gave it a try. It dragon fruit isn't very sweet and doesn't have much of a taste in general. You can feel the seeds while chewing, but it's nothing I couldn't handle. It does remind me of a kiwi, but kiwi's are much sweeter. The dragon fruit is pretty bland, but I can imagine that's why some people like it. It reminds me a little bit of watermelon, in the way you can taste the water in the watermelon. There is a lot of juice when eating the dragon fruit, it's just not sweet juice.

The dragon fruit was way less sweet than I anticipated, which was very surprising to me. I see this bright pink pear looking fruit, and when I cut it, there is a lot of juice that comes with it. I was excepting it to be sweet like a pear or a kiwi. I am not the biggest fan of the seeds, but they were so small they barley made a difference to me when eating the dragon fruit. I would definitely eat dragon fruit again and would rate it 9/10! It's a very pretty fruit and it doesn't have a strong or overwhelming taste which makes it easy to eat. Try a dragon fruit if you haven't!

Hendley, Joyce. “Dragon Fruit: How to Enjoy This Antioxidant‑Rich Fruit.” Harvard Health, Harvard Health Publishing, 17 Mar. 2025, www.health.harvard.edu/nutrition/dragon-fruit-how-to-enjoy-this-antioxidant-rich-fruit. Accessed 23 June 2025