This juicy red fruit delivers antioxidants, fiber and more to help keep you healthy. Christine Byrne is a journalist, trained chef, and registered dietitian with a decade of experience in food media.

She takes a weight-inclusive approach to nutrition and strives to share evidence-based information in a way that is inclusive and empathetic.

She writes the Performance Plate column for Outside, and her work regularly appears in dozens of national outlets. Previously, she was a food editor at BuzzFeed and the digital features editor at Self Magazine. She lives in Raleigh, NC. Pomegranates are delicious, and their ruby red seeds are a beautiful addition to recipes.

And while their popularity in America is relatively new, according to research published in Foods , pomegranates have been a staple in other cultures for thousands of years. Native to Iran and North India, the sweet fruit has long been grown and eaten throughout the Mediterranean regions of Asia, Africa and Europe.

They were featured in ancient Egyptian art and mythology, and they're even mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible. As well as a rich history, pomegranates have some serious health benefits.

Here are four of the top health benefits of pomegranates that you need to know about. Pomegranate juice and pomegranate arils aka the juicy seeds both deliver some impressive nutrition benefits.

Here's the nutrition breakdown for a serving of each. According to the USDA , 1 cup of pomegranate juice contains:. Here are just some of the benefits you'll get when you regularly include pomegranates in your diet. RD , a dietitian and certified diabetes care and education specialist.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that adult females eat grams of fiber per day and adult males eat grams. One of the most immediate benefits of getting adequate fiber is better digestive health.

According to the U. National Library of Medicine's resource, MedlinePlus , getting enough fiber helps improve digestion and prevent constipation—two benefits you might notice right away.

One thing to note is that you'll only get fiber from eating pomegranate seeds, not from drinking pomegranate juice. Getting enough fiber—including the fiber found in pomegranate seeds—is also linked to improved heart health.

According to a review in Current Cardiology Reports , people with the highest intakes of fiber had a significantly reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. Researchers propose this reduction is due to fiber's ability to lower LDL bad cholesterol, reduce blood pressure and decrease inflammation.

Pathak also notes that pomegranates are high in potassium, which the American Heart Association says is an important nutrient when it comes to preventing high blood pressure, a risk factor for heart disease.

Pomegranate juice might be beneficial for people with Type 2 diabetes, says Pathak. For example, a study published in Clinical Nutrition ESPEN found that participants with Type 2 diabetes who drank about 7 ounces of pomegranate juice a day had lower blood pressure both systolic and diastolic after six weeks.

All of this could lower the risk of heart disease in patients with Type 2 diabetes, who are at a higher risk. According to a review in Antioxidants , there is also a lot of evidence showing that certain compounds in pomegranates may be associated with better blood sugar numbers and may be protective against oxidative stress and cell damage that can worsen health outcomes for people with Type 2 diabetes.

She explains that these antioxidants are the main reason experts are looking into the potential health benefits of pomegranates. Experts believe that the antioxidants found in pomegranates might help counteract that inflammation and thus reduce the risk of these and other health conditions, according to a review in the International Journal of Functional Nutrition.

Pomegranates are delicious when eaten by themselves but can be tricky to deseed. If you want a more convenient way to get the seeds, buy them by the cup at your local market. Because pomegranate is rich in vitamin K, it may interfere with the blood clotting medicine Coumadin warfarin.

But appropriate dietary levels of vitamin K vary, so discuss your diet with your doctor if you take this medicine. American grocery stores typically stock only one variety of pomegranate, called the Wonderful. But elsewhere in the world, other varieties with different-colored skin and arils as well as flavor variations are cultivated.

The fruit is in season during late summer into early winter. A fresh ripe pomegranate should feel heavy when it is ready to eat. The skin should feel firm and have a bright red to deep red color and a leathery appearance.

Pomegranates that have started to turn brown are likely past their prime, but abrasions to the fruit do not affect its quality and you don't eat the skin anyway, so there's no need to discard the fruit if it has marks. You can also purchase just pomegranate arils seeds in some grocery stores' refrigerated or frozen sections, but they are often more expensive than purchasing the whole fruit.

Keep your pomegranates intact until you are ready to eat the arils. Whole fruit will keep at room temperature or in the refrigerator in a plastic bag for up to three months. However, the arils are only good for about three days once they are removed from the fruit. Keep fresh arils refrigerated.

If you buy containers of pomegranate arils, already removed from the fruit, keep these in the refrigerator, too. Pomegranate arils are juicy round jewels, packed with flavor. Inside each aril is a white seed that you can eat or spit out, although the seeds provide fiber.

Most people prefer not to eat the skin or the white flesh that surrounds the arils. Both are often described as bitter. Many people are often intimidated by whole pomegranates because removing the seeds can be a chore. But once you have a preferred method down, it becomes easy to do quickly.

There are several different ways to de-seed a pomegranate, but the simplest method is to simply cut the fruit into quarters and immerse the pieces in a large bowl of water. Massage the fruit to remove the seeds and place them in a separate smaller bowl.

Then throw away the bowl of water along with the unusable skin and pomegranate flesh. This method also helps prevent the juice from staining your clothing.

Once you've got your pomegranate arils, sprinkle them in yogurt , on a salad, or into your sparkling water, or eat them alone as a snack. Pomegranates, raw. FoodData Central.

Department of Agriculture. National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements. Vitamin C fact sheet for health professionals. Puneeth HR, Chandra SSP. A review on potential therapeutic properties of Pomegranate Punica granatum L. Plant Sci Today.

Sahebkar A, Ferri C, Giorgini P, Bo S, Nachtigal P, Grassi D. Effects of pomegranate juice on blood pressure: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Pharmacol Res. Ammar A, Turki M, Chtourou H, et al. Pomegranate supplementation accelerates recovery of muscle damage and soreness and inflammatory markers after a weightlifting training session. PLoS ONE.

Macchia L, Giliberti LA et al. Allergy to pomegranate and artichoke, novel food allergens of the Mediterranean diet. Clin Transl Allergy. Vitamin K: Fact sheet for health professionals. By Malia Frey, M. Use limited data to select advertising.

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