One of the annoyingly abundant plants on Crete is the prickly pear. Nopal. Tuna. Pear cactus. Some other strange things with thorns should not resemble. And cactus is my second choice for my Cretan green week.
Opuntia (Opuntia Ficus-Indica) grows like a weed in the wild in Crete. Despite its wide availability, this plant is crazy expensive when you want to buy it at the supermarket. It doesn’t make sense. When you come to terms with this fact, here’s the second one: they have prickle pear plantations.
But, what do you do with opuntia, and why does it count as a Cretan Green choice?
They consume the fruit raw with a Cretan beverage called “raki” – similar to grappa. They even make tsikoudia from opuntia fruit. You can purchase it online here.
How to Eat Prickly Pear
To eat prickly pear, you must handle the fruit with gloves and clean it well to remove the glochids that grow all over the fruit. Then slice the ends of the fruit off and discard them. To peel off the skin, make a longitudinal cut on the side of the fruit, sleep your finger into the slice, and peel. The skin should come off quickly. The prickly pear seeds are edible but hard to bite through. You can swallow them whole or discard them if you prefer.
Alternatively, you can add the fruit to salads or extract the juice and use it in cocktails, salad dressing, making jam or jelly, etc. Even the pads (nopales) are edible: you can peel them with a vegetable peeler and eat them raw in salads or cooked in soups. Grilled nopales are quite tasty, too.
Prickly Pear Health Benefits
According to the Mayo Clinic, prickly pear has health benefits; for example:
- prickly pear cactus can decrease blood sugar levels in people with type two diabetes;
- prickly pear cactus extract has anti-inflammatory effects;
- the fruit is high in dietary fiber, antioxidants, and carotenoids;
- it is rich in magnesium, vitamin C, and potassium;
According to other studies, “daily consumption of prickly pear fruit could be beneficial to cardiovascular health through a reduction of total cholesterol and LDL-C,17 whereas the intake of cactus pad could potentially lower fasting blood glucose levels.”
Several reports have documented the abundance of vitamins and minerals in cacti. The fruit is “a valuable source of nutrients and antiulcerogenic, antioxidant, anticancer, neuroprotective, hepatoprotective, and antiproliferative compounds.”
All these benefits suggest that prickly pear in your diet can be a good idea, but note that it may have side effects when consumed in large amounts. These may include mild diarrhea, nausea, increased stool frequency, bloating, and headache.