How to deseed a guava?

Question

I found guavas in the local Asian store and bought one out of curiosity. While I have had guava juice, I've never eaten the fruit before.

I bit into the fruit only to find my mouth full of hard seeds, which were somehow less convenient to spit out than, say, watermelon seeds.

Seeing that most of the fruit is taken up by the seed-interspersed portion, I don't want to throw it out and only eat the small seedless part between the center and the rind. But spitting everything out is tedious.

Assuming that I want to eat raw guava, is there any trick to getting rid of the seeds more easily?

Answer 1

The only ways I've figured to use the inter-seed pulp is to juice it or mechanically sieve it, such as in a food mill, coarse stainer, or colander.

This article from EHow suggests to blend or process the seed-pulp mixture, possibly with a bit of water, then sieve or strain. It might be possible to blend slowly enough to disrupt the seeds without pulverizing them. It sounds like guava seeds are edible, so if you damage them it's not harmful, but may make straining more tedious or less effective. I use a manual food mill and it works adequately.

If you're going the pure juicing route, see also this previous SA question on how to make guava juice.

I have the same problem with other fruits with similarly tricky seeds, like prickly pear cactus fruit. Pages like this one a rather brute-force (or perhaps "scorched earth") sounding policy of juicing the whole thing.

However, all of those are a little dissatisfying (to me) because they destroy the texture of the flesh, and oxidise even more quickly.

Answer 2

Being from Brazil I have eaten guavas my whole childhood.

My recommendation: eat them whole, including the seeds. The seeds are tasty, not too hard and good for your digestion. Any way you may try to deseed it will just ruin the texture of the fruit. No need to peel them either.

Ripe guava is one of the best fruits around, enjoy it!

Answer 3

I just bought my first guavas and was initially perplexed by the seeds, which I did not want to swallow.

The way I found to get rid of them and still be able to eat most of the fruit is:

1. Cut the outer fruit off from the center seedy area in 4 to 6 slices.
2. Some of the seeds will still be in those fruit slices, but they push out easily with a thumbnail.
3. Then you are left with slices of guava with no seeds. I found this way, though messy, to make them fairly easy to eat with no seeds.

Answer 4

I cut them up and put them in the food processor with some water to make puree, then put them in a nut milk bag and squeeze out the pulp, the seeds remain in the bag. The puree tastes good if added to a fruit salad or smoothie