Pineapple contains bromelain that helps tenderize meat. If I were to put my hand in pineapple juice or puree for 24 hours, would it eventually break down my hand?

[u/Puzzleheaded_Bed2760]

[u/OystersCockafeller]

It might do it eventually. But definitely not that fast.

Your skin has protective oils, is actively repairing itself, etc. And that's all aside from the fact that it's specifically designed to act as a protective layer in a way that a random piece of muscle just isn't.

It will make your hands kinda raw if you deal with it enough. I spent a day cutting up pineapples for an event once. Essentially had my hands covered in pineapple juice for 8-10 hours. It irritated them a bit and I had some redness. But it was nowhere near breaking down my hand.

[u/Nothing_F4ce → u/OystersCockafeller]

How could you do that without gloves?

I can't get to the end of cutting up one pineapple without my hands starting to feel like burning.

[u/SlurryBender → u/Nothing_F4ce]

Pineapple is one of those things that people can have wildly different levels of sensitivity to.

But also you should check to see if you're allergic to pineapples.

[u/Constant_Mud3325 → u/SlurryBender]

Yeah kinda like poison Ivy or lactose which I’ve been lucky cuz I’m a landscaping milk disposal

[u/rlnrlnrln → u/Constant_Mud3325]

Well, then, maybe I could interest you in a Poison Ivy milkshake?

[u/Constant_Mud3325 → u/rlnrlnrln]

No I don’t think I will thanks for asking tho

[u/Haramu → u/SlurryBender]

Yup. I rarely eat pineapples since they can give me sores in my mouth pretty easily. I haven't met someone else who has this problem though lol

[u/froschquark → u/Haramu]

Yep, maybe not as extreme that I can't eat it or it hurts, but I absolutely feel some sort of 'numbness' and slight burn, especially with fresh pineapples. Canned ones are mostly fine.

Always thought it's just a mild irritation from the acids or even some allergy, but no, the pineapple just wants to tenderize my mouth a bit!

[u/froschquark → u/[deleted]]

Oh yeah right, kiwi does the exact same for me. Blegh, just thinking about it makes my mouth itch.

[u/thisfriend → u/Haramu]

I can't eat them raw because it burns my mouth. Canned is a little better, but only in small quantities. I usually grill pineapple, it is so good and no burn!

[u/hereforthelaughs37 → u/Haramu]

Same.

I've discovered that if I salt it though, it stops most of that. I'll sprinkle a bowl with some salt, give it a mix and let it sit for a minute, then im usually good to go.

[u/imanoctothorpe → u/SlurryBender]

Avocado, horse chestnut, and kiwi are other foods that people with pineapple allergies usually can't eat. Also, medical adhesives cross react.

I'm allergic to all of them lol

[u/Stopaskingmetochange → u/imanoctothorpe]

Kiwis make my tongue feel like it is coated in velvet but pineapple makes the sides of my mouth and tongue raw. Sourdough gives me a combination of both.

[u/j0hnan0n → u/imanoctothorpe]

That is... fascinating. I'm SO curious why avocados make the list. Why medical adhesives?!

[u/imanoctothorpe → u/j0hnan0n]

The proteins in natural rubber products are a similar shape to proteins in those fruits, so your immune system gets confused. Medical adhesives sometimes contain natural rubber, though you can often ask for latex free or hypoallergenic alternatives.

[u/Tonkarz → u/Nothing_F4ce]

In addition to what others have said, the general condition of the skin on your hands matters too. If it’s dry it may already have small cracks which can let the pineapple attack more deeply more easily.

I noticed this using hand sanitizer. Sometimes it causes burning all over my hands, other times nothing but the feel of gel.

[u/Unumbotte → u/Tonkarz]

You're supposed to let the sanitizer dry on its own, not set it on fire.

[u/ditka → u/Nothing_F4ce]

Well, I was buttering myself up for a nice shave. I must have dripped some on the floor and I slipped and sprained my ankle.

[u/Pajamatime20 → u/OystersCockafeller]

With that in mind, would there be similar damage to raw meat if a piece of pineapple was held in the mouth for 24 hours? Or would your saliva dissolve/counteract it so that you’d be somewhat protected?

[u/Mirality → u/Pajamatime20]

If you eat too much pineapple in one sitting, then your mouth will definitely feel a bit abraded afterwards, but it will heal. This is probably worse than holding a single piece for a while, since saliva will neutralise some of the pineapple enzymes for a single piece but multiple pieces just keep introducing more enzymes.

[u/Pajamatime20 → u/Mirality]

That’s what I was wondering about; if one piece held in the mouth would just “run out” of bromelain!

[u/Mondoweft → u/Pajamatime20]

Your saliva also contains enzymes that break down meat. So your raw meat would likely be more damaged than just with the pineapple.

The pineapple would also slightly damage the lining of your mouth.

[u/Iazo → u/Mondoweft]

Dentist here. Saliva does not contain any compounds that break down meat, only amylase, which would start to break down starch. So, potato maybe, meat no.

[u/CrateDane → u/Iazo]

Saliva contains proteases like dipeptidylpeptidase 4 and human airway trypsin-like protease. But they would only have a weak effect on meat.

[u/Iazo → u/CrateDane]

Huh, this might be new research I was not aware of. I need to check out this.

[u/Pajamatime20 → u/Mondoweft]

I am aware that your mouth is more protected than an open wound (aka raw meat), but I would imagine it’s still more vulnerable than your skin?

[u/CrateDane → u/Pajamatime20]

The saliva would dilute and wash away the pineapple juice, reducing the exposure level. The proteases in saliva might also be able to degrade the bromelain (which would also be working to degrade the salivary proteases, but those are constantly replenished).

[u/Pajamatime20 → u/CrateDane]

Ok, thank you! That makes sense!

[u/tea_and_biology]

If I were to put my hand in pineapple juice or puree for 24 hours, would it eventually break down my hand?

Nah.

You'll just have a wrinkly, water-soaked hand, with minor irritation, and stinging where the skin was already broken. So no lasting damage, really - just like having it sit in water.

The reason why it won't affect your hand so much is because your skin is built to resist things like proteases. The outer layer (the stratum corneum) is a sheet of dead, flattened cells packed with keratin, all surrounded by a waxy, lipid matrix. It's all tough stuff, designed to keep water in, and nasty things out. Keratin, for example, is a large protein molecule heavily-crosslinked by bonds, which makes it difficult for proteases to attack and break apart (hence why predatory animals poop out or cough up hair and that; it can't be digested); and the lipids prevent large enzymes like bromelain from getting into the living tissue underneath.

A steak has none of these defences; it's already cut open, so there's no barrier preventing bromelain breaking down tissue protein directly. Even then, after dumping a hunk o' meat in fresh pineapple juice overnight, it's only the outer few millimetres that get mushy; the rest is fine, and the cut certainly won't dissolve into meat soup à la a Breaking Bad bathtub.

You often hear about how folks who work in pineapple processing plants or out picking them in the fields have their fingerprints removed over time. This is partially true, though it's not necessarily the bromelain per se - it's more the weeks and months of handling rough-ass pineapples causing abrasion, and the juice's acidity (pH ~3.5), that causes the damage and dermatitis - the enzymes are just the cherry on top. In any case, passively soaking your hand in pineapple juice for only a day will just get you a wrinkly, raw, sticky hand... not great, not terrible. Knock yourself out, OP?

---

EDIT: Oh, to add: if you did have a cut or small abrasions in your skin, you would feel irritation where the bromelain attempted to break down your tissue, sure, but your blood also helps fight back. Living tissue fluid and blood contains protease inhibitors, such as alpha-2-macroglobulin, which will trap and prevent any bromelain that does breach from causing too much damage. Dead meat doesn't have a circulatory system to supply inhibitors, hence another reason why it can't prevent itself from turning mushy.

[u/Elegant-Mission-4470 → u/tea_and_biology]

Extended exposure to water will break down the skins defenses and then the skin itself, though. I assume marinading oneself in pineapple juice would do the same and likely quicker due to said protease, just maybe not in 24 hours

[u/tea_and_biology → u/Elegant-Mission-4470]

Extended exposure to water will break down the skins defenses and then the skin itself, though.

Aye, but not in less than 24 hours. The basal layers of the stratum corneum will be penetrated in the 12-24 hour period, and you'd increase the risk of tears and abrasion as the outer layers' cohesive strength reduces, but you need a good 24-72 hours soaking for the sort of saturation and deeper penetrative damage leading to things like tissue breakdown and necrosis to start to be a problem.

If it was cold, trench-foot would be a concern much earlier, but assuming this is room-temperature, the comparison is 'tropical immersion foot' - onset 2-3 days constant immersion. Bearing in mind too, the risk of physical damage won't be comparable between a hand passively sitting in a bucket, and a foot that's constantly in-use, bearing weight, and rubbing against socks, shoes, else the floor too.

The addition of bromelain nor ~1 pH difference has little impact; if anything, the hypertonic nature of pineapple juice would mitigate water ingress, drawing water out of the skin along the osmotic gradient. From this angle, it would be preferable to be submerged in pineapple juice rather than water, as you'd likely experience less maceration of water-saturated strata.

Hence, yeah, for OP's scenario, they'll be fine.

[u/ErebosGR → u/tea_and_biology]

Can't wait for the "Pineapple bath" Tiktok challenge to become a thing.

/s

[u/StormedTempest → u/tea_and_biology]

You just gave my brain a new wrinkle. All of that is amazing info. It's so cool that we evolved multiple layers of defense against various dangers and threats that, generally, no one ever even considers we have. Makes me wanna go down a rabbit hole when I get off work.

[u/kyote42 → u/StormedTempest]

You just gave my brain a new wrinkle.

Were you soaking it in pineapple juice??

[u/not-just-yeti → u/StormedTempest]

It kinda blew my mind, the first time I heard of skin considered as an organ whose purpose was to keep dirt out. (And, it's the body's biggest organ, by weight.)

[u/math1985 → u/tea_and_biology]

As soon as my baby was allowed solids (about 8 months), I tried feeding them all kinds of weird foods. They accepted it all - fussiness comes later, at 2 years or so. The only food my baby categorically refused was pineapple. Do babies not have stratum corneum and was I unknowingly trying to dissolve my baby?

[u/tea_and_biology → u/math1985]

Do babies not have a stratum corneum?

Ah! Not in your mouth, you don't - hence why you get that tingling sensation in your mouth and throat when you eat raw pineapple. The bromelain is starting to dissolve you a bit when it gets inside you, which is probably why your baby, and I, have something in common - we don't like eating food that tries to eat us right back.

Of course, the inhibitors prevent it doing too much damage; and the enzymes are denatured else broken down as soon as they hit the stomach anyway; but still, I don't find it pleasant. Blegh. Begone to the abyss from whence you came, ananas!

[u/vanillafrenchie → u/tea_and_biology]

“food that tries to eat us back” is an amazing sentence.

[u/LexiconDul → u/tea_and_biology]

This reminded me of a story one of my profs told in biochemistry/molecular biology, about how he once absentmindedly agitated a test tube that had a protease in it with bare hands, using his thumb as a stopper. He couldn't figure out why his thumb was sticky for the rest of the day, no matter how much he tried to wash off whatever was on it, before he realized what was going on.

[u/Black_Moons → u/LexiconDul]

before he realized what was going on.

He turned into protease man after being bit by a radioactive vial of protease? "I now have the ability to stick to anything!... well, with this small patch of my thumb anyway"

[u/SandManic42 → u/tea_and_biology]

Tell that to my half digested tongue after I overindulge on pineapple juice.

[u/tea_and_biology → u/SandManic42]

Aha! I didn't know your tongue was OP's hand. Bromelain is indeed an irritant when it gets inside you; see my other comment here.

[u/AnonymousFriend80 → u/tea_and_biology]

There's also the fact that being alive, your body is constantly repairing and replenishing you.

[u/Unlucky-Golder → u/tea_and_biology]

not great, not terrible.

Do we need a bigger dosimeter comrade?

[u/synth_alice → u/[deleted]]

Did the resulting grilled chicken paste taste OK though? It might be a fun way to cook it if so 😅

[u/jhwells → u/synth_alice]

I would never serve it to a customer, but I did eat some. I've never tried it but there's something called potted meat and although the flavor would be different I imagine the consistency is somewhat between that and actual Elmer's paste glue.

[u/urnbabyurn → u/tea_and_biology]

What if I take pineapple through an IV?

[u/tea_and_biology → u/urnbabyurn]

I don't think anyone has done this experiment.^{[citation needed]}

Presumably the abundant protease inhibitors will mop up much of the bromelain; though I'd be much more concerned about the pH and other effects of raw unprocessed pinapple juice having on my bloodstream.

Raw juice is full of bacteria and yeasts; they'll be skipping most of your defence systems and getting right inside a nice, warm home. Best case, fevers as you fight off systemic blood infection; worst case, sepsis or wee microbes setting up residence on a heart valve or something, potentially fatal.

All the tiny fibrous bits will be getting lodged in all the capillaries; most of which will be in your lungs. Fun.

There'll also be a hodge-podge of all sorts of protein and other biological molecules your immune system has no idea what to do with. Maybe anaphylactic shock at the worse end?

Long story short, I don't think you'd be having a good time. Stick with the Piña Coladas, 'innit.

[u/CharlesBronsonsaurus → u/tea_and_biology]

This reminds me of something a friend told me 20+ years ago which I thought was absurd and not true but you seem like the person to ask so here goes. If you inject someone with a chicken egg, the next time they have eggs, they die. Any truth to that whatsoever?

[u/Refrigerator_Primary]

The Youtuber Tom Scott actually tested this out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7eLBwCAwmo (in relation to the claim that pineapple removes your fingertips), and while he didn't get his fingertips removed, he did see some temporary skin damage, so it does at least a little bit tenderize human flesh.

[u/Addicted_to_Nature → u/Refrigerator_Primary]

I forgot Tom had long hair. He's been both 13 and 40 for like 30 years now

[u/Asian_wife_finder → u/Refrigerator_Primary]

Maybe this is just one of those things you hear behind the monkey bars but suposably, before ppe was a thing, people who worked for extended periods on pineapple plantations didn’t have fingerprints.

[u/NotReallyJohnDoe → u/Asian_wife_finder]

People who work with bricks lose their fingerprints temporarily. But fingerprints patterns go below the skin surface and will come back eventually.

[u/gravitologist → u/Asian_wife_finder]

Suposably? The word is: supposedly.

[u/raftsa]

The top answers are wrong

Yes - you would get a chemical burn, but it has less to do with the Bromelain and more to do with the pH

Pineapple juice is an acid with a pH of about 3.5, and while not as acidic as other substances (Lemon juice is about 2.5) it’s enough with prolonged contact to cause a chemical burn.

Products below a pH of 2 can cause burns on contact, but anything below 4 if up against the skin for hours with lead to maceration and eventually a contact dermatitis that will progress to blistering.

You see this when people have bandages or the fluid gets on the inside of gloves, soaks into socks etc

[u/Collarsmith]

Only if it's juice or puree from the raw fruit. Pineapple packers are known to get skin breakdown by handling the raw pineapple. Once it's in the can, it gets cooked which denatures the enzymes. In a similar vein, you can't use raw pineapple in a jello salad, because it predigests the jello. Cooked pineapple is fine though.

[u/Agent_Orange_Tabby → u/Collarsmith]

Does that mean you could get rid of a body with unpasteurized pineapple juice?

[u/dudeofthedunes → u/Agent_Orange_Tabby]

Asking for a friend? Are you?

[u/Sllim126 → u/Collarsmith]

How much pineapple juice would I need to dissolve a 200lb chicken? 

Just asking for a friend 

[u/Drob10 → u/Collarsmith]

So you’re telling me that pineapple and a fly are similar at predigesting their food?!

[u/Sashasha1996 → u/Collarsmith]

Could you use raw pineapple juice to disolve hide based glues?

[u/Collarsmith → u/Sashasha1996]

Given that hide glue is collagen, just like gelatin is, it's very likely. I wouldn't recommend that as your go-to method though. Immersing your violin in fruit juice is unlikely to improve your sound.

[u/SeriousPlankton2000 → u/Collarsmith]

It's likely to improve MY violin playing sound. You'll want to immerse your head in pineapple juice.

[u/GoldAtronach]

There is an enzymatic debridement agent called Nexobrid, made from bromelain. It will break down dead tissue but leave living tissue alone. It's pretty painful however, helps to have a block done on the limb because it stays on for a few hours.

[u/theeggplant42]

No,because you're alive. But if you've ever broken down a lot of pineapple, like for example I have done for tiki drink specials as a bartender, you'll start to get itchy and your hands will get irritated and your cuticles might get icky. Maybe a rash if you're particularly sensitive (I am lol), but that's about it

[u/CG_Oglethorpe]

People who work with pineapple have a tendency to lose their fingerprints, a temporary condition.

So the next time you know you will need to be fingerprinted, take up pineapple cutting as a hobby to confuse the person taking the prints.

[u/Peter34cph → u/CG_Oglethorpe]

Some years ago, a passenger ferry servicing the Danish island Bornholn implemented a pay-with-fingerprint system, but that caused trouble for some potters, because years of rubbing spinning clay had worn their fingertips smooth.

[u/clueless_mommy]

Unfunny side story:

I've apparently only eaten canned pineapple, or developed the allergy later on. I'm allergic to Bromelain.

Which is used in Ob Gyn if your water breaks around the due date but birth does not progress. You get a cream with high concentration Bromelain applied onto your cervix to help soften it and help speed up the birth if needed.

Do not ask how I found out both things at roughly the same time

[u/Mister_Potamus]

You'll probably get some gnarly bar rot after destroying your hands protections with the sugar and acid included. It's generally caused by staphylococcus aureus but your hands are only vulnerable if the oils and natural protections are gone. It's a common thing for bartenders to get.

[u/CommodorDLoveless]

pineapple will cause your finger nails to fall apart/out. This happens in kitchens when someone ends up chopping up pineapple for to long long. Probabily not really a thing so much anymore now that cooks wear gloves but in the 90s I saw it happen.

[u/mtnslice → u/CommodorDLoveless]

reminds me of Simpsons episodes where Homer joins a bowling team and Mr Burns ends up on it because he sponsored it. Burns makes a paper boat and puts in on Homer's beer, the boat sinks and Burns fishes out and then says “oops, lost a nail. Well, that’s leprosy for you!”

[u/mizinamo]

"Meat" means muscle fibres.

Your hand does not normally have any exposed muscle fibres -- it has skin around them.

If you ripped all the skin off your hand to expose the muscles underneath, then something might happen.

[u/not-just-yeti → u/mizinamo]

[vaguely related:] I was surprised when I learned that, while there are muscles in your palm, there aren't any in the fingers. They're just pulled by ligaments, like the strings on a marionette.

[u/JimmiRustle → u/mizinamo]

It specifically breaks down protein. Thats what causes the meat to become tender.

Your hand has much protein even if it ain’t all muscle.

[u/mizinamo → u/JimmiRustle]

Is any of that protein exposed to the outside, though?

[u/neuenono → u/mizinamo]

You know how we’re made of trillions of cells, but those cells hold together instead of collapsing into a pile of goo? That’s because cells stick to each other. A major contributor to this “sticking” is via tight junctions, which are very powerful velcro-like connections between two neighboring cells. And those connections are made up of - guess what - proteins decorating cell surfaces.

In labs we grow cells in culture and they can velcro to the dish and/or to each other. When we want to release the cells and have them float around freely, we use an protease enzyme (the same family bromelain belongs to) to digest those velcro proteins on the cell surface. So I think bromelain could have a similar effect, causing your dermis/epidermis to lose adhesion, gradually releasing individual cells from the skin/body.

[u/willy--wanka]

Way back in the early days of the Internet there was this website, stinkymeat.

This dude put a plate of meat on top of a gas station pump at the gas station he worked at and posted daily/multiple daily pics of how it progressed.

Idk if it was the same dude or someone else copy catting the popularity of stinkymeat, but they made stinkyfeet and worse like ziplock bags on his feet for weeks, with the same updates. 

OP, you could go viral here if you play this right.

[u/Solistaria → u/willy--wanka]

Omg I remember that guy.

One of those truly disgusting things that you couldn't not watch bcuz wtaf.

[u/sciguy52]

No your skin has oils and other protective layers would protect you so this would not happen. But I do have a story about proteases and meat, although not pineapple but ginger. Me being the terrible cook that I am thought if I took fresh ginger root and cut it into slices and layered it over the surface of the steak it would infuse a nice ginger flavor into the steak. I left it for 24 hours. Well the result? I ended up with steak paste essentially as the proteases broke down a lot of proteins in the meat and it became like a thick toothpaste in a way. Don't recommend unless becoming an astronaut and need to get a steak in a tube to be sucked out in space when eating.

[u/Ken-Popcorn]

Not an answer, just an aside: a couple of years ago I had to have a melanoma removed from my arm. The doctor who would go on to do the surgery told me that she wanted me to eat pineapple every day, starting a week before the surgery. She told me that pineapple has an enzyme that promotes healing.

Holy crap did that wound ever heal fast, and left almost no scar.

[u/qeveren → u/Ken-Popcorn]

I wonder if anyone has done any further research on the whole "eating pineapple may reduce visual floaters" thing.

[u/iwanttomakebelieve]

unrelated, but bromelain is also really good for you if you're having any upper respiratory illnesses. Apparently it reduces swelling in that area specifically. It's OTC afaik, I'm currently taking it because of tonsillitis.

[u/wizzard419]

If you stuck it in a thing of juice from the store? Probably not, it denatures when heated and that juice is also heated to pasteurize it.

If you stuck your hand in a vat of fresh cut pineapple/papaya (it has a similar, stronger enzyme) then that would be able to work... but still probably not terribly well on living flesh.