Star Fruit Juice
The star fruit are really coming in like gangbusters now and I just hate for them to go to waste. My mother had been cutting the tree down to the root and on the years where it actually grew back and bore fruit, she had been putting the fruit in the trash.
This year I decided to fully take advantage of the tree. I have not done so since 1998, when I dehydrated slices and put them in glass jars to keep for snacking. Yum!
This morning I noticed there were several fruit that needed to be used. I was not in the mood to make jam or anything more complicated, so I got out the juicer. I have a Jack LaLanne, so it takes every bit of the juice out of anything you put in it. I used three large star fruit and out came on oversized juice glass full to the brim.
A good quality juicer is absolutely worth your money. Lesser juicers might leave behind a lot of pulp. Using a blender will mean you have to strain the puree before you drink it. My LaLanne juicer left behind only a few bits of very dry skin/seeds. It made the most of the juice.
Star fruit (or carambola) juice is phenomenal. You have to wait for the fruit to be deep yellow, though, I have seen a lot of references online about people adding sugar or Splenda to the juice, but that would have something to do with the variety. Carambolas come in two varieties: sweet and tart. The sweet variety is larger and less acidic. The fruit on my tree are very sweet and most likely the Golden Star variety. That seems to be the most common here in Florida.
A ripe star fruit yields juice that tastes like a banana-orange smoothie, but more mellow. You do not have the acidic quality of the oranges, so all the better.
According to the USDA, one cup of raw star fruit contains:
91% water
45 calories
trace protein
trace fat
11 grams carbohydrate
310 iu vitamin A
29 mg. vitamin C
223 mg potassium
Hey Angie –
Glad you finally got to use some of those wild starfruit. Do you like the juice?
Our company makes starfruit juice as well. You might like it!
Check out http://www.drinkstarpower.com and let me know what you think.