“I couldn't help it, I saw the third guy coming back with pineapples”

Here at the palatial Riddled Research Laboratory, we remain staunchly unbeholden to corporate interests, impervious to the blandishments of potential funding sources. In particular, to blandishments from the anonymous corporate philanthropy that paid for the recent refurbishment of our facilities... we would not recognise a blandishment if it blandished right on our shoes. Rather than tied to the convenience of sponsors, our pursuit of knowledge takes us in whatever direction the quarry has fled in, and right now that direction is all about pineapples and health.


It appears that bromeliad plants with edible fruit are aggressive -- not just on Earth but on other planets also too (Blish, 1958). Their truculent nature is not limited to the foliage, and the fruit contains a protein-dissolving mixture of enzymes, bromelain, for the discouragement-with- extreme-prejudice of insect consumption, for the Ananas comosos plan for world domination does not include a role for being eaten by insect larvae.


If that deterrence is insufficient, pineapples have the capacity to transform into stone. No-one knows how. It may be that they tunnel through the barrier to the fictive realm and borrow plot devices from J. G. Ballard stories.

But every sow's ear has a silver lining, and it's an ill wind that gathers no moss, and if life gives you mascara then make masquerade. And it follows from this phenomenon of pineapple petrification (plus the Law of Similars) that pineapple juice, after dilution to a homeopathic degree, will protect from the rigorous effect of the Medusa's stressful regard.

Unaccountably, this corollary is neglected in the Alt-Med literature. As indeed is the three-men-in-jungle / vengeful-natives / ordeal-by-fruit joke. Instead there is a focus on bromelain. This being a meat tenderiser in concentrated form, it makes perfect sense to the magical-thinking cargo-cult mentality that since we are made of meat we should therefore consume bromelain, so it can dissolve cancers and such as.

It came as little surprise to encounter the name of Hans Nieper, whom we have already met in connection with his challenging and outside-the-box thoughts on carnivorous plant juice. Failing to establish any curative benefits from pineapple squeezin's, Nieper added it to his alternative-oncology scammocopeia anyway, the theoretical allure outweighing practice. Conceivably he was inspired by the verbal resonance between Ananas and Ananias, patron saint of liars.

Thinking outside the boxes

Nieper was an interesting character: a veritable Renaissance man of nescience whose subtractions from human knowledge spanned many disciplines. He rejected Einsteinian physics with the same insouciance as he ignored autobiographical details, conventional human physiology, and biochemistry. It is tempting to translate "complete intellectual freedom" as "self-taught", but "taught" implies "acquisition of facts", and there is little evidence of Nieper paying any attention ever to our shared knowledge of reality, preferring the solipsistic notions that slipped out from his bounded-in-a-nutshell imagination.* This is what happens when Germans adopt Rudolf Steiner as an intellectual role-model.

Further pioneering contributions to the literature come from Steven Taussig. Who would have imagined that there could be such a career as "professional pineapple pimp"? Certainly not my vocational advisors.

In 1975, Taussig formed his own company, Chemical Consultants International, and developed and marketed a dietary supplement extracted from the stem of the pineapple.

Taussig had already left the employ of the Dole Fruit corporation (tasked with finding new markets for their product) and gone free-lance by the time of his speculative piece in our old friend Medical Hypotheses on why meat tenderiser might be a beneficial addition to one's diet. He later supported those speculations by ret-conning a back-story of Traditional Tribal-Wisdom Folk Medicine.

These two names reverberate within the literature, passed from author to author in the manner of a communal lollipop, along with citations of Nieper's unobtainable self-published papers, and certain recurrent sentences:

It has been used as a medicinal plant in several native cultures and bromelain has been chemically known since 1876 (Peckoldt et al., In: Taussig, 1988)

It has been used as edible fruit and medicinal plant in several native cultures and its active extract bromelain has been chemically known since 1876 (1).
Peckoldt, T. and G. Peckoldt., In: Taussig, S.J. and S. Batkin

It has been used as a medicinal plant in several native cultures [1] and these medicinal qualities of pineapple are attributed to bromelain … Bromelain has been chemically known since 1875 and is used as a phytomedical compound [2].

It has been used as a medicinal plant in several native cultures Bromelain is a crude extract from pineapple & has been chemically known since 1875 and is used as a phytomedical compound

It has been used as a medicinal plant in several native cultures and bromelain has been chemically known since 1876 [Peckoldt T, Taussig SJ, Batkin S]

Eventually the whole Human Centipede Ouroboros fed into PubMed by way of a mockademic junk-journal from Hindawi. Perhaps a homeopathic dilution of pineapple juice is indicated, to protect against plagiarism.

Pay no attention to Another Kiwi's appearance. He suffered a minor accident in our matter-transmission research when a tropical fruit somehow found its way into the transporter pod but we are confident of some day restoring him to what passes for normalcy.

Thx Not a Troll and Ross Miles at Orac's joint

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* Bonus Nieper Numptying:
[Nieper] refers to particular environmental factors that he believes lead to "gene instabilities" and to the activation of oncogenes: X- rays, ultraviolet radiation, alternating current electrical fields, and the "tachyon field turbulence of the geopathic zone."

In Nieper's view, geopathic zones "play a decisive role in the development of cancer cells and cancerous tumors" (677), in that he believes there is a higher incidence of cancer in areas of high levels of earth radiation and in areas situated over subterranean water veins. He believes that geopathic zones cause disturbances in the magnetic or electrostatic properties of tissues in the body, which disrupt the genetic material. Nieper claims that 92% of cancer cases he has examined are associated with long- term occupancy (particularly where the individuals sleep) of geopathic zones. He believes that "removal of cancer-stricken patients from geopathic zones absolutely belongs to the conscientious duties of an oncologist" (677).

Further evidence that sufficiently advanced grifting is indistinguishable from sincere derangement, and vice versa.