It’s a bit wonky-looking on the outside, but it’s so sweet and creamy on the inside….this is a sugar apple! Also known as sweetsop or custard apple, sugar apples are grown in the Caribbean (duuuh), Central America, and South East Asia; basically, in warm climates. It smells sweet, tastes sweet, and each little pod is filled with black seeds.

Sugar apples are good for you because they’ve got:

• lots of vitamin C – flu season anyone?
• fibre – two sugar apples will give you half your daily fibre needs.
• potassium and your B vitamins – energy, and building blocks for growth and maintenance.
• copper – helps to maintain thyroid health.
• iron - good for your blood.

The trick with sugar apples is the very narrow window of tastebud ecstacy. Prior to sugar apples ripening, they are not very tasty... then WHAM, they quickly begin to get soft. Eat 'em right there and then. If not, your manna from heaven quickly turns into slimy pile of overly sweet, decomposing mush, that few enjoy.

Aside from the obvious: pick 'em up and eat 'em raw, there are other interesting uses for sugar apples. In India, sugar apples are used as hair tonic. The seeds can be ground and applied to hair to rid a person of lice. Just be careful. The ground seeds can severly irritate your eyes, to the point of causing blindness.