Get past its spines and reap health benefits from the prickly pear cactus

Covered in menacing needlelike spines, the prickly pear cactus demands to be treated with care. In return, it will reward you with a juicy neon fruit and fleshy green pads that have nourished people for millennia.

While the spines that protect the plant from predators can intimidate, the showy clusters of yellow, red and orange flowers that bloom atop the cactus pads can captivate. These ephemeral flowers give way to the oval fruit that, like the pads, packs a nutritional punch including vitamin C, minerals and fiber.

"Prickly pears are considered to have many health benefits," said Hope Wilson, a dietitian and nutritionist with the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension. "They're low in sodium, low in fat and have zero cholesterol" – all of which can contribute to heart disease.

The prickly pear cactus – part of the Opuntia genus– has been prized as food and medicine by Indigenous people in the Southwestern U.S. and Latin America. It's commonly known in Spanish as nopal or cacto. North of the border, Texas adopted the cactus as it official state plant in 1995, and Arizona, New Mexico and California have showcased its attributes in festivals.

Although the drought-tolerant plant is native to the Americas, particularly in desert areas, different varieties grow throughout the world, including Australia. "I got a phone call from someone doing a documentary in Kenya and they said, 'We found a prickly pear,'" Wilson said.

She touts the benefits of the prickly pear through her outreach work on food safety and nutrition in central Arizona. While talking about preparing different foods, she has observed that more people seem to be familiar with the fruit – tuna in Spanish – than the edible pads, she said.

Wilson compared the taste of the fruit to that of watermelon. It's...