Step By Step: How to Cut a Pineapple

In case you weren't aware, the outside of fruits are FILTHY!! You have no idea where these fruits have been or who has handled them. Could there be fecal matter on the outside? Yuck! While yes, pineapple are washed off, they are still not sanitary.

The majority of the blogs I've seen on how to cut a pineapple show the fruit flesh, the part you eat, being cut up on a board where the outside once sat. Can you say cross contamination? If you're crazy about cleanliness in the kitchen and preparing healthy food, keep reading. I'll show you step by step how to cut a pineapple beautifully!

If you're like me, you want to be careful when choosing fruit. There is nothing that makes me madder than bringing home fruit that looks pretty on the outside and yet inedible because it's under or overripe. Yuck! One of my best rules of thumb when choosing fruit is the smell test. If it doesn't smell good, it won't taste good. This is especially true for strawberries, cantaloupe, and especially pineapple.

1. Smell test. If it doesn't smell sweet and delicious, it won't taste sweet and delicious.
2. Check for ripeness. There's a fine line between ripe and rotten. Leaves should be green and fresh and don't come out when you pull.
3. Ask to cut it open. If available, this is your best way to ensure freshness and taste.

Wash your pineapple. You have no idea where it has been and what has crawled over it.

Chop off the top and the bottom of the pineapple. Don't take too much off either end but make sure you get the prickly parts off. The top can be used as a centerpiece or for some other decorative purpose as long as you don't try to eat it.

Cut the body of the pineapple into quarters. Make sure you use a sharp knife to get a clean cut. Most importantly, do this on one side of the cutting board. Pineapples are very dirty, even after you rinse it because it has a lot of crevices that cannot really get clean. With that being said, I like to quarter my pineapple on the left side of my cutting board--making it the dirty side.

Now its time to slice up each quarter. First get rid of the woody center. Place the quarter on its end on the right side of the cutting board--the clean side. Start by cutting the woody core away.

Then put the quarter back to the left side, spine side down. Score the flesh vertically across the quarter. Score it again, this time horizontally. See photos.

Now slice it close to the rind, releasing the slices over a bowl into beautiful, bite-sized pieces.

Why is it we wash some foods before we eat them and others we don't? I'm just as guilty as the rest of you and have only just come around to the fact that we could become seriously sick from the foods we bring into our home.

Don't become tomorrow's headline because you ate some tainted fruit or vegetable.

Foods you need to wash:

1. bananas
2. mango
3. kiwi
4. avocado
5. watermelon
6. cantelope

While you don't eat the skins of these foods, you cut up the on the same surface that touches the dirty outside. E coli, salmonella, and other nasty bacteria live on the outside. Don't put your fresh fruits in contact with it!