POMEGRANATE WARS

Just grab one, rip it open with your teeth, and lob it at the enemy… hard! Running as fast as I could, I caught one anyway right between the shoulder blades. That one stung! I knew who threw that one. It was Bobby, the kid down the street. So, I ran around the other side of the house to pick up more artillery. Snagging three, I ripped one of them open with my teeth. I couldn’t resist taking a big juicy bite before lobbing it over the fence at my cousin. I nailed him right on top of the head. The next one was for Bobby. Thwap! Got him! Right in the middle of his clean white t-shirt! The stain was set. His mom will be really mad!

Pomegranate wars were the best! The only time we had more fun with them is when we went by one of the three or four big bushes and collected a shirt full of the grenades to take over the hill. This is where the war games were the most fun. We actually had tall grass and bamboo cane to hide in. After this particular war, we all congregated around the old hackberry tree in the back yard. All of us were covered and dripping in the blood-red pomegranate juice. Some of us actually re-ran the course to pick up used “ammunition”. Then, we’d take turns hosing each other down before our grandmother could see the mess we’d made with the pomegranates. “You kids! I'm gonna jerk a knot in someone's tail, if you don't leave my pomegranate bushes alone! You’re ruining them….just ruining them!” I’m really surprised that there aren’t pomegranate bushes growing wild over the hillside where we used to play.

If we’d only known then, just exactly how precious that particular fruit would be today, or that it contained nutrients and antioxidants….things that would be beneficial to all of us. Perhaps it just wasn’t known then, even by medical science. We’d never heard of antioxidants. The only thing we new about those things is that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” and orange juice had all the vitamin C we would need for the day. Carrots would enable us to have x-ray vision, milk had calcium and grew strong bones, and vegetables provided vitamins, minerals and roughage. That’s what our parents and grandparents would tell us, and so it was.

There used to be an old man named Mr. Wood that would come by in a beat up old pick up truck. I’d say he was in his mid 40’s to early 50’s. That was old to us in the mid to late 50’s. The back of his truck was loaded up with produce of all kinds, from tomatoes, green beans and squash to sugar cane, rutabaga and yes pomegranates. Mr. Wood would drive slowly down the street ringing a cow bell, calling everyone out to come pick out what they wanted to buy off the truck. We’d all run out to see what he had, because he’d always give us kids a bite of something sweet….usually a wedge of watermelon or a stick of sugar cane each. The cost of the produce was always reasonable, if not just down right cheap. You could fill up a grocery store basket off the back of Mr. Wood’s truck for less than $5. "Them's real good tomaters, Ms. Lewis."

Look at just how far we’ve come today! It’s been discovered that pomegranates are useful for things other than hillside warfare. However, if you check out the prices at any grocery store, you will see that a quart bottle of this fruity elixir will run you at least $9. The raw fruits I’ve seen are at least $3 each. I can only attribute this to demand. The demand is prompted by what medical science has found out about it. It’s loaded with antioxidants, not to mention all the vitamins. It may prevent and control prostate cancer, reduce the risk of breast cancer and other cancers, improves blood flow to the heart, reduces plaque in the arteries, prevents heart disease and reduces the risk of heart attacks. And that’s just for starters.

Pomegranates are well suited to a semi-desert environment as well as a semi-tropical environment. You can have them at your beck and call. They’re easy to grow, and can be harvested in the fall through January. If you’ve got a juicer, you can have pomegranate juice year round for the simple cost of the bush you’ve planted. Well, if you freeze the juice you can have it year round.

Berries of all kinds are like pure gold today. They are also high in antioxidants and have various curative properties. Cherries are good for taking care of joint inflammation. The produce aisle of any grocery store is almost like walking through a natural pharmacy. There’s something to fix what ever ails a person. And, this is separate and apart from what’s been sectioned off and called the “Health Food Section”. Is this supposed to mean that they’re finally admitting that all the processed foods in the rest of the store isn’t really as good for you as they originally said it was?

I can truly say that eating healthy is almost as expensive as going to the doctor, or picking up prescriptions at the pharmacy. But, I’d much rather eat foods that are beneficial to my health than take medicine prescribed by a doctor. Doctors would rather you take the medicine they prescribe. I guess that’s because they don’t have time to read all there is to know about the benefits of natural food.

Medical science is always coming up with new information every day about various foods and what they’ve discovered they can do. Green tea is said to open up your arteries. We’ve always known honey is a natural antibiotic. It’s better to eat honey that’s been collected in your geographic area because it’s beneficial to easing airborne allergies. There’s just no end to the benefits of natural foods.

If you think the cost of the fruit is too much, look it up on line. Find out the nutritional values, and medicinal properties. An ounce of prevention is worth a lot these days. Then, go to a local produce stand. It's more reasonable there. And every body listen up, especially all you Baby Boomers! I’ve heard on the news that watermelons are the new natural Viagra. And, I always thought it was pumpkin pie.