My Papaya!!!!

I'm a big fan of papaya these days. I hardly care about the fact that a small papaya can provide 300% of a day's Vitamin C intake. It's just the taste!!!! I know, its ridiculous :) Papaya can easily be voted as the world's least favorite food.

I wanted to find a notch further about my favorite fruit :) So, yeah I DID MY RESEARCH!

Papaya (I won't bore you with the botanical name) was first cultivated in Mexico and today, is grown around the world, but only in tropical continents. Yes, the fruit hates frost! It comes in 2 natural varieties - Orange and Yellow. Yellow papaya isn't a very common scene in India, but coincidentally my first papaya was a yellow one. Oh how I absolutely detested it. I owed never to eat it again, yellow or orange. Ultimately my memory gave up on the unfortunate incident and I believe when I tasted it the 2nd time, some 15 years later, I absolutely loved it.

Moving on, Papaya was the first fruit who's genome was decoded. For the non-biology readers Genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information which is encoded in DNA (Did you know the 5 elements making the DNA strand were Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Carbon, Phosphorous? I didn't know!). It was also the first fruit to be genetically modified in the United States. Now, what isn't genetically modified in the United States? Anyways, Papaya in US are grown in Hawaii and are also imported from Mexico. The ones in Hawaii were prone to a Virus and by genetically modifying the fruit, it was made resistant to the virus.

Further, Unripe papaya and it's seeds are used as a natural contraceptive in Tropical sub-continents. The Unripe fruit and the tree's leaves contain an enzyme called Papain. The Papain enzyme is widely used as a meat tenderizer and injected to treat herniated discs.

Lastly, the seeds of the ripened fruit can be used as a substitute for pepper corns. How awesome is that?

For papaya lovers, as long as your papaya is ripe, you can continue enjoying the fruit!!!