HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY - Mikana: Papaya

HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY 
“One who hears good counsel and heeds it will live to see many descendants.”

September is National Papaya Month
The papaya, Carica papaya L., is a member of the small family Caricaceae allied to the Passifloraceae. Commonly and erroneously called a “tree”, the plant is actually a large herb growing at the rate of 6 to 10 ft ( the first year and reaching 20 or even 30 ft in height), with a hollow green or deep-purple stem becoming 12 to 16 inches or more thick at the base and roughened by leaf scars.  Both the stem and leaves contain copious white milky latex Papain, which produces allergies in some people.

Ripe papaya is usually consumed fresh as a breakfast or dessert fruit; it can also be processed and used in a variety of products such as jams, fruit juices, and ice cream. Papaya is also consumed as a dried fruit.  Papaya is an ingredient in a variety of cuisines throughout the world. Unripe fruits and leaves are consumed as vegetables. Papaya seeds are also used as an ingredient in salad dressings.

Papain is a milky latex collected by making incisions in unripe papayas. The latex is either sun-dried or oven-dried and sold in powdered form to be used in beer clarifiers, meat tenderizers, digestion aids, wound debridement aids, tooth-cleaning powders, and other products. Consumption of the fruit is reported to aid digestion due to the papain content.

The papaya fruit is about 88.8% water, 9.8 % carbohydrate, 0.8% fiber, 0.6% protein, 0.6% ash and 0.1% fat. A 100g (3.5 oz.) serving of papaya has 39 calories, compared to banana’s 92 calories. Papayas also contain 16% more vitamin C than oranges and are a good source of vitamin A (about half of that contained in mango).

The ‘Solo’ variety is valued for its productivity, uniform fruit shape and size, and excellent fruit quality. ‘Solo’ strains are predominantly self-pollinated and thus are highly inbred and uniform.  The ‘solo’ papaya is not a good variety for papain production due to its low yield of papain.

Three ‘Solo’-type varieties are grown commercially in Hawaii. The most important is ‘Kapoho’, which has yellow-orange flesh and fruits that weigh 12 to 22 oz, considered an ideal size for export. ‘Kapoho’ is adapted to the Puna district of the island of Hawaii, where approximately 90 percent of the state’s papayas are grown.

The ‘Sunrise’ variety, commercially grown primarily on Kauai, has reddish-orange flesh and larger fruit than ‘Kapoho’. ‘Sunrise’ is grown and marketed on a large scale overseas, but in Hawaii its production and export are small compared to those of ‘Kapoho’. The ‘Waimanalo’ variety, which has yellow-orange flesh and somewhat larger fruit than other ‘Solo’ papayas, is grown and marketed almost entirely on Oahu.

Papaya trees bear fruit throughout the year. “Skips” in the fruit column caused by temporary sterility may occur during hot, dry summer periods and may cause fruit shortages in winter. The plants will continue to bear for many years, but yields usually decline as the trees age, and picking becomes difficult. In commercial production, fields are usually replanted or abandoned after three years.

Studies in Hawaii have shown that papaya flavor is at its peak when the skin is 80% colored. For the local market, in winter months, papayas may be allowed to color fairly well before picking, but for local market in summer and for shipment, only the first indication of yellow is permissible. The fruits must be handled with great care to avoid scratching and leaking of latex which stains the fruit skin.

In tropical folk medicine, the fresh latex is smeared on boils, warts and freckles and given as a vermifuge. In India, it is applied on the uterus as an irritant to cause abortion. The unripe fruit is sometimes hazardously ingested to achieve abortion. Seeds, too, may bring on abortion. They are often taken as an emmenagogue and given as a vermifuge. The root is ground to a paste with salt, diluted with water and given as an enema to induce abortion. A root decoction is claimed to expel roundworms.