The papaya fruit is known in some places as pawpaw or kiwi fruit. This fruit should form an important feature of our diet just like any other fruit. Papaya probably originated from southern Mexico. Today, Papaya is cultivated to varying degrees in all tropical and subtropical countries. It is especially common to find reasonable quantities of this fruit in the East African countries. Papaya fruit is eaten as a melon, included in salads and when unripe, it is cooked as a vegetable. As far as taste is concerned, pawpaw might be described as a mixture of melon, Williams’s pear and milk.The male or staminate form of papaya has a fragrant, whitish yellow flower borne on the long stems. These male flowers only produce occasional small fruits. The female papaya has larger flowers which are often solitary in the leaf axils above the stem and will produce fruits varying between 1 and 10 Kg.
One of the most important components of this Pawpaw fruit is the papain, a dried milky juice from the shell of the unripe fruit. To obtain the papain, the fruit is taken at the size of at least 4 x 2 cm and scored by finger nail or a razor blade for the milky latex to ooze out. The best yield is obtained when the sun is not shining directly on the fruit. Riper fruits will yield less papain. The milk coagulates on a cloth and is then scraped off and dried, usually in the sun. This is now papain which is a prototype of vegetable proteases - protein enzymes capable of breaking down other proteins into amino acids. They are similar to animal pepsin.
Papain has many uses and applications including the following:
1. cleaning wounds to form smooth scarring
2. treating worms
3. curing indigestion
4. tendering meat
5. softening skins for the elderly
6. preserving juice and beer
More on this story here: How to Cure Your Indigestion by Using Pawpaw
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