You've Been Eating Pineapple Wrong Your Entire Life

Pineapples are delicious — there's no doubt about it. But before you can indulge in that deliciousness, you have to go through the extensive amount of labor it takes to cut a pineapple. Since pineapple is such a versatile fruit that can be used in anything from smoothies to salsa, wouldn't it be nice to know that there was an easier way to get to the parts of the pineapple that matter? Well, there is, and you can add pineapple to the list of foods you've been eating all wrong.

This pineapple eating hack, which was posted to social media on the TikTok app (via Taste of Home), practically broke the Internet. The video shows someone enjoying their pineapple using only their hands, grabbing the rind and pulling, separating one chunk of pineapple from the rest, bite by bite. There is no knife needed, and no coring or peeling. The method simply involves pulling and eating from the top down. It looked incredibly easy, but for some video watchers, it may have been a bit too easy. 

"You can tell they cut around the things" one person said. Plenty of others agreed, calling it fake and saying it looked like each piece of the pineapple being pulled off was pre-cut. Other commenters on the video said they even tried it for themselves and failed, but ABC rounded up several videos of Twitter users successfully peeling off individual pieces of pineapple just as the original poster did. Was this just an illusion to gain social media fame? 

Food52 doesn't think so. You may just be trying it on the wrong kind of pineapple. They say this method is best used on a "snack pineapple." This specialty pineapple is smaller and less fibrous than a regular pineapple. If you can't get your hands on a snack pineapple, it's not completely impossible for this hack to work on a regular pineapple, provided you pick one that's very ripe. As the Los Angeles Times reported, "...if you get yourself a very, very, very ripe pineapple and approach it like a man stranded on a desert island, then the hack will work for you." Before you start plucking, one Twitter user also suggests rolling it around on a table to loosen it up a bit.

If you're one of the lucky ones who are able to make this hack work, there may be one downside to it. As you pick each piece of the pineapple apart, you may take some bites of the actual core, too. Though pineapple cores are a bit harder and not as tasty as the actual fruit itself, Roschelle Heuberger, associate professor of foods and nutrition at Central Michigan University, says this may not be a bad thing, telling Everyday Health, "Pineapple cores have nutrients... Eating it raw is really the best way from a nutritional standpoint. It is just a little harder and less sweet than the rest."

We knew that there were plenty of health benefits to eating pineapples, but who knew that the core of a fruit provided nutritional value? It seems like this new way of eating pineapple could have more perks than setbacks, but it might take a few tries to get the technique down just right.