About The Fruit

Clementine fruits are tiny citrus fruits belonging to the oranges family known as mandarin. It often has a deep orange, glossy look and can easily be separated into about 14 segments after peeling the shell. It is commonly known as Christmas oranges and seedless tangerines. People can enjoy them as whole fruits or incorporating them into some fruit and green salads.

Clementine fruits are known for their sweetness, quite much more than most citrus fruits. They are very easy to peel are often seedless.  Health-wise, these fruits are packed with ascorbic acid and antioxidants.

They are grown in abundance from November to February in the winter season. Clementine is often targeted by children as healthy recipes or snacks since it has an easy-to-peel skin, and that the fruits are often considered “tiny oranges.”

Small but mighty, clementine is filled with a lot of intense flavors and quite impressive health benefits. This citrus heterosis (hybrid) blends the most interesting aspects of sweet oranges and mandarin oranges into a small but juicy fruit that is very easy to peel.

When most Americans think of clementine, they often picture a common, seedless type known as Clemenules or Rules. These varieties are predominantly grown in California and Spain. Other high ranking seedless varieties of Clementine include Algerian and Fina. However, in Africa (West Africa in particular), Monreal clementine is the most cultivated. This variety has seeds and is sweeter and larger than the seedless types.

Clementine (often called Halos or Cuties) is a hybrid of both sweet oranges and mandarin. These small fruits are easy to peel, have a bright orange color, and sweeter than almost all other citrus fruits, and of course, are typically seedless.

Given these features, Clementine is often used by both parents and children as an easy way to supplement fruit into a child’s ration. They are a brilliant source of ascorbic acid and beneficial antioxidants. However, just like grapefruits, clementine often contains compounds that may work against some certain medications.

This article, therefore, reviews the nutrition and benefits of clementine. All you may have to do is to keep scrolling!

Nutrition

Clementines are very small citrus fruits of almost the size of a golf ball, with moderate moisture content. It has a lot of minerals and vitamins.

An average clementine (weighing 74 grams) is sure to have:

• Fiber:              1 gram
• Protein:           1 gram
• Calories:          35
• Carbs:  9 grams
• Fat:                  0 grams
• Vitamin C:       40% of the DV
• Vitamin B9:  5% of the DV
• Vitamine B1:   5% of the DV

Most of the calories present in clementine are from natural sugars, together with a small portion of protein. Clementine fruits are also an ascorbic warehouse, with an average fruit providing about 40 percent of our daily body requirement. Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is a strong immune booster and antioxidant that can prevent cellular necrosis from unstable and harmful compounds known as ‘free radicals.’

Also, a clementine provides some vitamin B9 (folate) and vitamin B1 (thiamine). These vitamins play a lot of roles to keep our body functioning optimally and also helping prevent anemia (blood shortage) and promoting an active metabolism.

Health Benefits

1. Reduces Inflammation

Antioxidants help to combat harmful free radicals and prevent cellular damage, thus reducing inflammation. The antioxidants are ascorbic acid (vitamin C), narirutin, hesperidin, and beta carotene. Antioxidants help prevent the development and proliferation of diabetes type 2, some inflammatory conditions, and heart conditions.

Some animal and test-tube research studies on narirutin and hesperidin have proved clementine fruits to have strong anti-inflammatory attributes, but further findings need to be done on humans.

2. Prevention of Damages from Free Radical

Being a good source of numerous potent, strong, and active antioxidants like α-pinene, limonene linalool, α-terpineol, myrcene, and β-pinene, these fruits protect our bodies against damages from free radicals. Produced during metabolic processes, these harmful free radicals may foster several severe ailments like cancers if not treated.

3. Cancer Prevention

These small but mighty fruits contain great levels of antioxidants like vitamin C (ascorbic acid, which plays a vital role in inflammation reduction. Research relates excessive inflammation to many cancer types. Diets rich in anti-inflammatory fruits, like clementine, may help reduce the possibility of developing cancer.

4. For Good Digestive Health

A single clementine fruit contains 1 g fiber (an impressive level ), giving the fruit its low-calorie count. High intake of dietary fiber encourages digestion by increasing stool bulkiness and making it really easy to pass out.

The vitamin C (ascorbic acid) in these fruit promotes healthy digestion. Just a little vitamin C may reduce levels of HCL (hydrochloric acid), which helps our body easily break down and utilize nutrients. HCL also combats pathogens in our stomach just to reduce several risks of infection.

5. Boosts Skin Health

Clementines are very high in ascorbic acid (vitamin C), which can help improve skin health in a lot of ways. Your skin naturally has a large amount of ascorbic acid, as it aids the production of collagen (a protein complex that gives skin its plumpness, firmness, and structure.

This means that getting enough vitamin C in our diet may help ensure that our bodies make enough collagen to keep the skin potentially younger and very healthy, as an adequate level of this protein can lower the risks of having wrinkles.

6. Fiber-packed Food

One clementine contains approximately 1 gram of fiber, which is required to feed the good microflora, soften one’s stool, and reduce constipation. Fiber from fruits has also been found to reduce diabetes type 2, bad cholesterol, and promote healthy weight gain.

7. Rich in Vitamin C

Just like the other family members, the clementine happens to be rich in vitamin C. As we all know, vitamin C is expected to be taken externally as the human body finds it hard to produce it inside. Daily consumption of clementine fills your body with vitamin C, hence keeping so many diseases such as hardening of arteries, high blood pressure, etc., at bay. Additionally, vitamin C is also known to boost the human immune system and fight cardiovascular disorders.

8. Eye Health

Research discloses that people who eat citrus fruits regularly are less likely to experience age-related macular degeneration. This is because the flavonoids in citrus fruits have the responsibility of protecting the eye. While flavonoids can be found in some varieties of fruits and vegetables, the common type found in clementines seems to be very powerful for promoting healthy eyes.

9. May Increase Your Fiber Intake

Although one clementine has just 1 gram of fiber, eating a handful of it throughout the day is easily a lovely way to boost your fiber intake.

Fruit fiber serves as food for normal microflora in our gut. It also piles up and softens our stool to reduce constipation and potentially prevent issues such as diverticular disease, which may occur if the food that has been digested gets trapped in the polyps of the digestive tract.

Fruit fiber may as well reduce your cholesterol levels through binding with food cholesterol and thus prevent its utilization into your bloodstream.

Also, fiber from this fruit has been connected to a reduced risk of diabetes type 2, while a relatively high fiber intake is linked with normal body weight.

10. Skincare Benefits

Clementine fruits are also very beneficial to human skin. As highlighted above, the clementine has a high amount of vitamin C and citric acid; hence it aids the elimination of blemish-causing pathogens and boosts collagen production, thus leaving you with crystal-clear, glowing skin.

11. Aids Iron Absorption

Non-heme iron (Fe) is found in compounds of plant origin and is not often absorbed with ease, unlike the heme iron, which is gotten from animals. Mixing salads with bell peppers, spinach, and vitamin C-rich foods is beneficial to the absorption of non-heme iron at least up to 3-6 times.

12. Aids Fruit Consumption in Children

Clementines are very small, sweet, easy to peel, and often seedless, thus making them a great snack for kids. Most branded types of this fruit are targeted for young parents and their children as a way to raise fruit intake. As reported by the National Cancer Institute, it is pertinent to only almost one-third of children in the US to eat enough fruit. Research claims that taking fewer vegetables and fruits in childhood may lead to poor health in adulthood and also poor eating habits.

Because clementine fruits are very appealing to kids; and usually affordable by their parents, they can help boost fruit consumption and great and healthy eating habits even from a young age.