the prickly pawpaw
What a Secret Fruit Can Teach Us About Healthy Eating
It was on a hike two years ago that I first discovered the pawpaw. It was September of 2020, and lockdown had begun to lose its luster. People began coming out of hiding, albeit cautiously. We were invited by some friends to go on a hike in a popular local park — out on the trail, it would be easy to maintain social distance while also being out of the house and actually “doing something.”
A guy named John had organized the hike, and it turned out he had an ulterior motive. Once we were safely out on the trail, he introduced us to his personal obsession: the mighty pawpaw.
Insofar as I’d ever thought about it, I’d assumed that the pawpaw was a figment of the imagination a Disney lyricist, invented for the sake of a Jungle Book rhyme scheme (“But you don’t need to use the claw / When you pick a pear of the big pawpaw”).
But no — the pawpaw is very real, and it has a cult-like following in American cuisine. The website Serious Eats calls it “America’s Best Secret Fruit,” and a recent Washington Post article says, “There are two types of people in the region right now: Those who know it’s pawpaw season and those who’ve never heard of the fruit.” On the other hand, the Facebook groups Pawpaw Fanclub, Pawpaw Fanatics, and Pawpaw Nation boast a combined total of nearly 25,000 members.
An oblong orb of about 3-4 inches, the pawpaw has a thin skin that’s yellow-green in color. Inside, wrapped around big black seeds is a creamy, yellow flesh that’s been described as part-mango, part-banana, part-citrus. It’s very sweet and rather tasty. John showed us how to find the little buggers (look for tall, skinny trees with long, teardrop-shaped leaves) how to pick them (give the tree a quick shake, and if they fall off, they’re ripe), and how to eat them (right off the ground; tear them in half and take a bite).
Now I have to be honest, my keto diet means I don’t have much fruit these days. I honestly can’t remember the last time I had a banana. Partly that’s because the high sugar content and partly because, why bother? If I’m going to splurge on something with lots of carbs, it darn sure isn’t going to be a banana.
This may sound like sacrilege — 5 a day, right? — but in fact, the evidence on fruits and veggies, at least in terms of their benefits for weight loss, is pretty mixed.
fruit season
Which brings us to this morning. It was a cool 68 degrees and sunny, so Judy and I grabbed the dogs and headed out to a local forest for a nice weekend hike. We’d been on the trail just a few minutes when Judy said aloud, “Hey, I think it’s pawpaw season.”
From that moment on, our meander through the woods became a foraging adventure — staring up, shaking trees. Before long, we’d filled the pocket of my backpack with sweet, sticky fruits. It was a blast. But was it healthy?
There is a phrase in the ancestral health community that you’ll hear from time to time: eat fruit in season. The idea is that it’s definitely unnatural to eat strawberries in the dead of winter or apples in early spring. The fruit that’s available year-round at the supermarket is only there because it’s been shipped in from Mexico or somewhere in the southern hemisphere. (Food for thought: how much fossil fuel did it take for that New Zealand kiwi to end up on your salad?)
Sticking to local, seasonal fruit is definitely better for the planet, and probably better for your health. But when it comes to weight loss, is fruit your friend? Dr. Eric Westman, author of End Your Carb Confusion and Director of the Duke University Keto Medicine Clinic, famously keeps a poster on his clinic wall that says “Fruit Makes you Fat.”
“Certainly this is hyperbole?” I hear you cry. (At least, those of you who are English majors.) Well, let’s look to our friend Baloo again, and his brethren, the North American black bear. Like us, black bears are omnivorous, and indeed, they love them some fruit. Starting around August, bears enter into a state called “hyperphagia,” where in preparation for winter hibernation, they eat like contestants at a county fair. According to the website BearSmart Durango,
“During this fall hyperphagia (feeding frenzy) phase, if the food supply is there, bears will:
Feed up to 20 hours a day
Consume 20,000 calories, and
Add two to four pounds of fat each day.”
Their preferred diet during this phase? Venison brisket? Elk jerky? Nope. They get their grub on by consuming 20 - 30 pounds of berries and acorns a day (which, the site points out, is “roughly equivalent to eating 30 Burger King Whoppers or 95 Taco Bell soft tacos”).
That bears choose acorns for their ursine Fourthmeal repast is especially interesting to me. I remember reading some time ago that acorns are unlike any other food in nature, in that they are high in both fat and carbohydrates, and low in protein. This makes them uniquely fattening.
In Why We Get Fat (and What to Do About It), author Gary Taubes writes about another well-known acorn-eater. He says that squirrels “double their weight and body fat in just a few weeks of late summer. Dissecting these squirrels at their peak weight, as one researcher described it to me, is like ‘opening a can of Crisco oil -- enormous gobs of fat, all over the place.’”
Gross. But interesting. Acorns, too, are a well-loved sign of fall, and I noticed lots of them on the ground during our hike. It didn’t occur to me to gather them up for a snack, but it’s a good thing I didn’t, lest I too be turned into a can of Crisco.
Here’s the thing: as rare as it is to find high-carb/high-fat foods in nature, you know where it’s not rare? The supermarket. Pretty much every ultra-processed snack food on the market — chips, tater tots, ice cream, Taskykake Peanut Butter Kandy Kakes — features that same combination: lots of carbs, lots of fat, very little protein. It’s no wonder that we Americans are all starting to look like hyperphagic bears in winter.
cycles of nature
My point here is not to demonize fruit — or squirrels, for that matter — but to think about how our eating patterns may be tied to, or cut off from, the cycles of nature. It seems to me there’s a wisdom here: nature provides fattening foods at a time when critters need to fatten to get ready for the long winter ahead. But when we tune out that wisdom, replacing nature’s bounty with a smorgasbord of manufactured junk, we cause ourselves harm in the process.
So if you’re in the Mid-Atlantic, go ahead and get out there. Pick yourself a pawpaw or two. Eat them raw, bake them into bread or blend them into smoothies. This week is the autumnal equinox, and it’s that one time a year to have this local, seasonal treat. But don’t go overboard on bounty of the season — after all, the Pumpkin Spice Latte that’s calling your name (52g of carbs, 14g of fat) is like an acorn smoothie on steroids.
Paw paws, who knew!
Great info Dave!!