The word "pomegranate" (Punica granatum) is Latin for "fruit of many seeds." The pomegranate is a little deciduous tree or big shrub that bears fruit, the Punica granatum. It is a superfood with much history. Pomegranates can be traced back as early as 4000 BC. Its red fruit sprouts from beautiful red flowers and is between a grapefruit and a lemon in size. The white flesh inside the thick skin is filled by hundreds of seeds. (Tohi, 2016)
For thousands of years Ayurvedic medicine has used pomegranates as a source for traditional remedies. Pomegranate juice and seeds are used as a heart tonic, while the fruit rind and the bark of the tree is used for, dysentery, diarrhoea, bladder problems, mouth ulcers, and intestinal parasites. …show more content…
This is because of the massive amount of seeds. (Panek, 2016)
Pomegranates have been used in herbal medicines and as a food source, for thousands of years, in the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. To the Romans, it signified marriage, so brides would use pomegranate-twigs to make their beautiful crowns.
The following story was taken from The Myth Encyclopaedia. It depicts the story of Demeter and her daughter Persephone. “Pomegranate seeds appear in the Greek myth of the goddess Demeter. Demeter was the guardian of grain, crops, the earth's abundance, and her daughter Persephone. One day Persephone was picking flowers when the king of the underworld, Hades, captured her and took her to his dark realm to be his bride. Demeter was grief-stricken and refused to let the crops grow. All of humanity would have starved if Zeus had not commanded Hades to free Persephone. Hades let her go, but first he convinced her to eat some pomegranate seeds. Having once eaten the food of the underworld, Persephone could never be free of the place. She was destined to spend part of each year there. For those months, the world would plunge into barrenness, but when Persephone returned to her mother, the earth again produces flowers, fruit, and grain”. (Rank,