Prickly Pear Cactus: a New Superfood?

Writer: Emma Margie

Let’s be honest here for a second. Summer is the time when you break your routine (whatever that routine may be). Don’t feel ashamed about it. Breaking routines is understandable in the summer, especially since it’s a time for rest and relaxation.

One routine that tends to break is your promise to eat healthily. Maybe this past summer you treated yourself to some ice cream or baked some delicious cookies from scratch that you just couldn’t resist. Either way, now that school has started up again, you may feel like you need to get back into your healthy eating routine, stick to your salads or Buddha Bowls, and stay away from sweets (except for the cookiegrams at CelSat, which are always an exception).

Now that you’re back on your health kick, you may reach for your dried goji berries to pour into your smoothie and top it off with some chia seeds. Or maybe you’re more the antioxidant type and will automatically go for a bowl of blueberries and pomegranates. Some of these foods, like goji berries and blueberries, have been deemed superfoods in the past. Superfoods are those choice fruits, vegetables, or other foods that grace your Instagram feed from time to time because they are rich in nutrients and said to be good for your health.

What if I told you that there was an extremely versatile food that is starting to get noticed as a possible new superfood?

The prickly pear cactus, or nopal, has been a staple in Mexican food for a long time, but it is only recently that we’ve catalogued its extensive health benefits. What also makes the cactus so great is that it can be eaten in a variety of ways. The most common way to eat nopal is to skin the pads, cut up the flesh, and scramble it with eggs. However, you can also eat it grilled, sautéed, or raw in salads. In addition, it’s not just the pads of the cactus that are edible, but also the leaves, flowers, stems, and fruit.

Okay, so the prickly pear cactus has a lot of different edible parts and can be eaten in many ways, but so what? Why are people starting to consider it a superfood? First of all, nopales contain many vitamins and minerals, but are also very low in calories (about 16 calories per 100g). Furthermore, the vitamins and minerals in the nopal have many health benefits. For example, the pads contain moderate amounts of vitamin A, which can help protect against skin and lung cancer. The pads also contain average levels of vitamin C, which helps to boost the immune system, and small amounts of B-complex vitamins, which are essential to certain cellular functions in your body. In addition to the vitamins contained in the prickly pear cactus, you can also find minerals such as calcium, potassium, magnesium, and iron.

Nopales are also a rich source of dietary fiber, which can help with LDL-cholesterol and blood sugar levels, while also aiding in the smooth passage of digested foods and relieving constipation. In this process, the fiber helps to clean out the colon and dilute possible concentrations of carcinogens (the things that can cause cancer). Eating nopales could also boost your immune system and, because they contain phytochemicals, nopales have antioxidant properties. Finally, studies from the American Diabetes Association found that eating nopales along with a balanced diet decreases glucose levels, a benefit for people living with diabetes.

So what do you think? Should the prickly pear cactus be considered a new superfood? I’ll leave the answer to that question up to you, but it’s important to note that a lot of research still needs to be done on nopales before experts can confirm the health benefits mentioned above. Until then, the HC caf always has plenty of healthy options like salads, soups, and Buddha bowls, just to name a few. Just remember, the best superfood is a balanced diet, which can include a cookiegram topped with icing and gummies from time to time.