A few days ago, I was at the market and overheard someone say “What are these”? I looked and there was a pile of cute little mangosteens. I purchased a couple for Aussie $1.50 each. They had been imported from Thailand. Here’s a picture of the two of them.

The lady who sold them to me said to cut the mangosteen in half through the center. Silly me! I cut it all the way through, and a bright red juice started pouring out of the fruit. I realized I wasn’t supposed to cut right through. Anyway, at least you can see all the seeds and the pulp of the fruit in this picture.

I cut the second mangosteen properly by stopping the knife when I got to the soft part. One half of the mangosteen just fell off cleanly, and it looks more like all the other pictures of mangosteen.

I took the white part out carefully, and it consisted of tiny little segments (similar to the segments that an orange has). I really can’t tell you what it tasted like though! It was entirely different to any other fruit I had ever tasted.

A delicious taste! I tasted some of the pericarp (the red part you can see in the hollow section) and it wasn’t nice at all. Thank goodness for juices that taste delicious, so we can still get the benefit of the pericarp.

I took a photo of the mangosteen next to a rather large passionfruit, to show you the relative size. This passionfruit is a bit bigger than the average passionfruit.

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For some people, they take energy drinks because of their ability to help them increase their concentration and alertness on the job. Whatever the needs are, energy drinks are good when taken in moderate quantities. But when it becomes the “solution” to tiredness and bodily weaknesses, which are a result of hard work, then there is a problem.

Energy drinks are not meant to keep you awake or to help you keep pushing to the limit. They are meant to give you the increased energy levels that you need so that you can stay a little longer at your task and finish it up. When taken in moderate quantities, there isn’t any likely chance of it becoming dangerous. But when taken in excess quantities, it can cause side effects like irritability, insomnia and tachycardia –increased pulse rate- that are common with excessive coffee intake.

Energy drinks are not meant to provide the one stop solution to frequent tiredness and bodily weakness.   One good solution is to take a healthy energy drink with the nutrients your body requires to keep alert and keep your concentration levels up.   However,  I recommend looking on the label of the can first, to ensure the drink does have the nutrients your body needs.

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