Can You Juice A Pineapple With The Skin On?

I love to juice pineapples and they are one of the key ingredients whenever I make a green juice. However, I was suprised when people started to ask me if they can juice a pineapple with the skin on.

I’d never even considered it. It’s just not something I thought people would consider.

But after hearing several people ask me the same question I decided to write up this brief response to answer their question.

 

Why Juice Pineapples At All?

To start with, let’s think about why you would juice a pineapple. Skin or No Skin.

The reason is that pineapples are super healthy. They contain an enzeyme called bromelin that helps with digestion. This is important when you are drinking fresh juices…especially green juices that can have fiber. As I’ve detailed elsewhere on this blog, juicing does not remove all of the fiber. So that additional enzyme is beneficial.

Also, pineapples taste great! They can certainly enhance the flavor of most any drink.

That’s why I like adding pineapple to drinnks that include leafy greens like kale and spinach and wheatgrass. These are things that, honestly let’s be real, do not taste that great!

So, in conclusion. We juice pineapples because they are healthy and taste great!

 

Can You Juice Pineapple Skin?

NO. 

See, that was simple. But, really. You can’t juice pineapple skin in the same way that you can’t juice a banana skin. These are different than apple skin or lemon peel. They are extremely fiberous and contain very little liquid.

I’ve read some crazy ideas online as to how you can juice them (boiling them like shoeleather? ) but I would never suggest that.

There is simply no reason to ever juice a pineappe without peeling it. It won’t come out right and you could even end up breaking your juicer.

If you slice up a fresh pineapple from the supermarket and you put it though the juicer, what happens?

First, the actuall pineapple (that is, the inside…the fruit) might not end up getting juiced properly because the skin can get stuck and jam up the juicer.

And that’s the best case scenatior and you’re using an auger juicer. If you have a centrfigual juicer, then you are in for a world of hurt as the juice will end up undrinkable! The juicing blade will slice and dice that pineapple peel into tiny little pieces. They won’t be liquid. The resulting pineapple juice will be a thicky and sedimendt like slush that you will have to throw out.

 

Why Peel A Pineapple Before Juicing?

You peel the piuneapple because you cannot juice the skin. It’s not that hard to peel a pineapple. Don’t go crazy about not wasting any small bit of the pineapple. You want to make sure that you get enough of the fruit and none of the peel. I’m not an expert pineapple peeler, but I don’t mind.

As long as you have a good pairing knife and take your time, you can easily peel a pineapple in less than a minute.

Remember, the pineapple fruit is where all of the good nutrients are. There are almost no benefits to the skin and in fact there are some serious side effects to juicing the pineapple skin.

So stay away from juicing the pineapple skin.

 

What If You Don’t Want To Peel A Pineapple Before Juicing?

If you don’t want to peel a pineapple before juicing it, then I suggest that you simply buy pre-cut pineapple fruit. It’s the only real alternative.

You can get freshly cut pineapple in most health food stores. However, my suggeston would be to buy flash frozen pineapple. Preferbably organic.

Stores such as BJs and Costco and many health food stores will sell bags of flash frozen fruit. Often times you can get pineapple alone, but other times you might get pineapple in a mix. BJs for instance, offers something called a Tropical Mix that contains pineapple, strawberries and Mango.

Strawberries and Mango’s are not the best to juice, so what I would suggest that you do is to seperate the two and only juice the frozen pineapple chunks.

 

What To Mix With Pineapple In Your Juice?

I suggest that you always make a juice that is not strictly pineapple. I am not a big fan of a pure fruit juice!

So, while you could add something like apples, I actually prefer to make a green juice using pineapple fruit.

For instance, here is a sample recipe:

• Celery Stalks (3 or 4)
• Kale or Spinach (1 bunch)
• Half an Organic Lemon (with the skin)

This is an ideal pineapple juice. It will still have a nice pineapple juice flavor, but it won’t overdo it with the sugar content.