Call it by any other name but it is still the same. We know it locally as lukban, at least in our Pangasinan dialect. And Dad has planted about one or two grapefruit trees which are now bearing fruits. The flowers, when they bloom smell just as sweet as oranges.
Since I was diagnosed with the big C (my friend doesn’t want to call it this way since you can fight and conquer it), I have this penchant for eating citrus fruits like guyabano or sour sop aside of course from the ever reliable apples. There was a study made on guyabano and it was found out that it is ten thousand times more powerful in fighting cancer than chemotherapy. And unlike chemotherapy, it does not kill the good cells in your body. Lately though, I’ve been enamored with this sweet, delicious treat, the pomelo. We found a good, reliable fruit vendor in our neighborhood and she sells them for about a hundred pesos a kilo. Sometimes, one pomelo weighs more than a kilo but it is all worth it. This variety has just that right degree of juiciness, tart and the skin is so thin and the plumb pulp bits taste heavenly. It’s seedless too. I’ve learned to peel it, sectioning and getting the meat intact from the rind with bare hands and the process is a joy in itself. I learned from my lola from way, way back that you should not use a knife in peeling pomelo so it won’t taste bitter. Young as I was, I believed her of course.
The health benefits of grapefruits are too many to be overlooked. Its rind contains many anti-cancer agents that help fight certain diseases It is a food rich in flavonoids which can inhibit the activation of carcinogen.
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