Mangosteen Exotic Fruit - How to Eat

The exotic fruit mangosteen is a dark purple-ish fruit the size of a tangerine. It is a tropical fruit from a tropical tree near equatorial region of the Pacific such as in Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, and others. That is why you do not see too many of them in the West.

They are a bit rare and exotic in the United States. In fact, even my spell-checker is not familiar with the word "mangosteen". However, these fruits can be still sometimes be found -- perhaps in Asian markets. One reporter on BrooklynPaper.com found a some in Brooklyn New York hidden behind the counter and paid about $11 each for them. Alternatively, you can travel to Southeast Asia where the fruits are more abundant so would not be considered exotic to the natives there. Hence, they will be more reasonably priced. TheAtlantic.com says it is a "Fruit That's Worth a Trip to Thailand".^[2] The Center for New Crops and Plant Products at Purdue University says the mangosteen is "one of the most praised of tropical fruits".

The fruit has a tough rind on the outside and has moist white flesh on the inside that tastes sweet and tangy. You want to get to the white flesh.

Wash the fruit with water to rinse off any dirt. Then cut through the rind at its equator. But not too deep as to to cut into the flesh. Then use your hand to crack open the mangosteen in half to expose the white flesh. You can either use a spoon or a fork to scoop out the white flesh into your mouth.

Inside the flesh, you will find some seeds. If you find a large seed, you should just spit out. The small seed you could just eat. The seeds are intricately attached to the fruit flesh, so it is probably easier to extract them in your mouth with your teeth, rather than trying to cut them out. When selecting mangosteens, some people like to look at the "star" at the bottom of the fruit. The number of star segments tells you how many fruit segments are inside. If you pick one with a lot of fruit segments, then the seed in each of those segments will be correspondingly smaller.

As with most fruits, you should keep them the refrigerator to prevent them from going bad. Superfruitinfo.org shows the difference between a fresh mangosteen and a mangosteen that went bad. it is hard to tell when a mangosteen has gone bad by looking on its outside. You have to cut it open to look inside to be sure. A good mangosteen should have an even white inside. There should be no yellow. If you see yellow or uneven whiteness, it is probably bad -- don't eat it.

People generally do not eat the rind because it tastes terrible.  Center for New Crop says it "contains bitter yellow latex and a purple, staining juice.".  Superfruitinfo.org says "It’s like eating mushy alum chalk!"

You have to be wary of the many websites that promote mangosteen juice and mangosteen derived products claiming all sorts of health benefits. But do not believe all the claims that they make. Some may be exaggerated, some may be multi-level-marketing, and some may be total non-sense.

Mangosteen juice or magosteen derived product do not cure cancer.  Due to the aggressive marketing of some companies, reputable sources has to put out news alert correcting the information. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center put out alert announcing "there is no scientific evidence supporting the use of these products to treat cancer in humans". University of California at Berkeley Wellness Letter says "Mangosteen marketers make farfetched and unsubstantiated claims for their products. ... But there are no clinical trials, and what happens in a test tube or animal may not occur in a human."

You can read about some of the sales tactics on mangosteen.com and learn about both the truth and non-truth about mangosteen.

The white fruit portion of the mangosteen has little health benefits. So juice derived from only the white fruit portion may tastes sweet and great like the fruit, but not much other than that.

Some claims the anti-oxidant or anti-inflammatory capabilities of xanthones in mangosteen. But xanthones is found primarily in the rind of the mangosteen and not in the sweet white fruit. As mentioned above, the rind is very bitter and is not edible from a taste standpoint. And if you make juice from the rind, it would taste bitter and astringent. Or else the juice maker would have to dilute it so much that there is virtually no rind in the juice. Or they mask the taste with lots of sugar and artificial favors. The outer rind is astringent because that is how the fruit ward off insects.

Another way companies make money is to put a tiny bit of mangosteen rind in its derived products and then start making health claims based on small preliminary laboratory tests found in compounds in the rind. The public is unaware that the amount of rind in the juice is so little, that it would have no health benefit what-so-ever.

Even so, the health benefits of xanthones is questionable. Wikipedia says "there is increasing scientific understanding that xanthones or other polyphenols from plant foods do not serve antioxidant roles in the human body".

In short, eat the fruit because it tastes good. But don't buy into the over-hyped claims of mangosteen-derived products.