Yang Tao, the Incredible Chinese Gooseberry

By Uncle Paul

I want to take you on a journey where beautiful green emeralds are found, to a land where Giant Pandas roam and bamboo stretches upward into the sky, to the valleys along the Yang-tse River. Here is where a small, brown, fuzzy Yang Tao fruit grows wild on vines that wrap around beautiful trees along the river. Over 800 years ago, this is where the Chinese gooseberry was found. Considered a delicacy by the great Khans who relished the fruit's brilliant flavor and emerald-green color, it has a taste of sweetness yet has a hint of tang. It is like tasting a combination of nectarines, melons, citrus fruits, and delightful strawberries.

Knowledge of this wonderful fruit expanded to other countries in the mid-1800s to 1900s referred to as Chinese gooseberries. A collector for the Royal Horticultural Society of Britain sent samples home in 1847, and another sent seeds to England in 1900. It reached the U.S. in 1904. In 1906 Chinese gooseberries found their way to the shores of New Zealand. Here the folks looked at this beautiful fruit and said probably something like: “Chinese gooseberries huh? This fruit doesn’t look like any goose I ever saw. It’s round and fuzzy like our own Kiwi bird.” And the rest is history. Kiwi fruit was born with its name associated with New Zealand and its beloved national bird, which is fuzzy and flightless.

There are mainly three types of kiwifruit sold in the market today: green, baby kiwi, and new gold. The green kiwifruit, which is the most popular, has fuzzy brown skin, bright green flesh, tiny black seeds. The baby is about the size of a grape; this berry-like fruit is packed with flavor and has a smooth edible skin. The gold kiwifruit is relatively new to the United States. It was first grown in New Zealand in the 1980s. It has golden yellow flesh offset by tiny black seeds. It tastes similar to green kiwifruit, but it also has a hint of mango. On the outside, the gold kiwifruit looks the same as the green kiwifruit except it has an almost fuzz-free skin.

Can you eat the fuzzy skin? The skin is thin and just needs to be rinsed and rubbed lightly to dry. Then, cut in quarters like an orange and enjoy — skin and all. A simple way to eat kiwifruit is to cut the fruit in half and eat it with a spoon. Mix kiwifruit into low fat yogurt, or add sliced kiwifruit to a fruit plate or a fruit salad. Use kiwifruit slices in a green salad. Top a beautiful white cake with kiwi slices, add it to fruit tarts or to frozen low fat yogurt for a sweet and refreshing dessert. Make a delightful fruity salsa with chopped kiwifruit, tomatoes, green onions, cilantro, and mangoes. Eat sliced kiwifruit with low fat cheese and crackers. Make a kiwifruit smoothie or shake by mixing kiwis in a blender with bananas, 100% juice, and ice. Make a kiwifruit sandwich using peanut butter, bananas, kiwi, and your favorite preserve

The kiwifruit is a natural meat tenderizer, because kiwifruit contains an enzyme called actinidin. Just cut in half and rub kiwifruit over the meat, or peel and mash with a fork then spread it on the surface of the meat and let stand for 10 to 15 minutes.

A study conducted by Dr. Paul Lachance of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., evaluated the nutritional value of fruits to determine, ounce for ounce, which fruit provides the most nutrition. The study found kiwifruit, with an index of 16, to be the most nutrient dense of all fruits, followed by papaya (14), mango (11), and orange (11). Kiwifruit has the highest level of vitamin C, almost twice that of an orange, and magnesium, a limited nutrient in the diet and important for cardiovascular health. In fact, just two kiwis have 240% of the vitamin C our bodies need every day for good health. Kiwi, papaya, and apricot outranked bananas and oranges as the top low-sodium, high-potassium fruits, supplying 75% more potassium per fruit than an average-sized banana. Kiwifruit was found to be a good low-fat source of vitamin E, which is unusual and important, as most good food sources of vitamin E are also high in fat. It is also considered by FDA's definition to be a good source of dietary fiber. With less than one gram of fat per serving, this sweet and tart little fruit has almost as much dietary fiber as one cup of bran flakes! Kiwifruit provides antioxidants, fiber, and many other health benefits.

A study published in the April 2004 issue of Thorax followed 18,737 children aged six to seven years old living in Central and Northern Italy. It found that those eating the most citrus and kiwifruit (5 to 7 servings per week) had 44% less incidence of wheezing compared to children eating the least (less than once a week). Shortness of breath was reduced by 32%, severe wheeze by 41%, night time cough by 27%, chronic cough by 25%, and runny nose by 28%. Children who had asthma when the study began appeared to benefit the most, and protective effects were evident even among children who ate fruit only once or twice a week.

In my opinion, Oregon grows the very best kiwi. You need at least 260 frost free days to grow it and we have it. During the season
Oregon kiwi is all I sell.

Eat it whole or slice it up...either way, this fruit will tantalize your taste buds while providing you with tons of essential nutrients. Find an Oriental taste treasure in the emerald green, baby, or golden kiwi, the most nutritional fruit in the world.

Uncle Paul, along with his wife Calla, owns Uncle Paul’s European Style Open Air Produce Market, 2310 SE Hawthorne, 503-484-8612 or visit www.unclepaulsproduce.com.