Durian For Dinner and Diet?

Figure 1.0

The portion of durian above as a replacement of my usual dinner meal. My friend were asking, “Are you sure it is enough as your dinner?” and I answered him with a serious look, “Why not? I’m on diet dude”. I know some of you might show me with a surprised face and with the words playing on the mind, “Durian as a replacement of dinner meal and as diet meal as well? Crazy?”.

Durian is very high in calories and carbohydrates. In other words, durians can cause weight gain and it is fattening! Durian contains high sugar level and people with diabetes should be alert of their limit of durian intake.

At most of the time during durian season, you will find at the fruits stall where they sell durians together with another seasonal fruit, named Mangosteen. This two different fruits are seasonal fruits and the coincidence things that happen is both fruits harvest at almost the same season. Not too sure if you might notice about this. Therefore, since decades most of the Asian practice the culture of consuming Mangosteen after taking durians. The reason being is because it is believed that durian is a heaty fruit while mangosteen is a cooling fruit. Hence, Mangosteen is best taken to reduce the heatiness associated with the durian intake. 

Never ever consume durians together with alcohol. It is serious lethal combination to be concerned of. The content of the alcohol itself will rise the blood pressure level after consuming durian. 

For a durian lover like me would only able to tell you whether the durian taste nice or taste bad, when you ask me about durian. Perhaps, I can also tell you where to get a nice durian, for those which I tasted before. That’s all! Nothing more than that! However, if you were to ask a local connoisseur about durians, I believe they will be able to tell you from A-Z types of durians from various types of breeds. If you were to ask more, I believe they could even tell you the story or history of how each name of the durian breeds come from. 

At my last visit to Thailand, I was lucky enough to taste the durian in Thailand and I was told by my local friend there that one of the most expensive and famous breed of durian in Thailand is called “Morn Tong”. Another famous type of durian which we often see some of durian stalls where they wrote on the board, “D24” or “D101”. I definitely couldn’t differentiate the type from its physical look.

Recently, I even saw in Singapore that there is a type of durian named “XO” and the flesh of the durian has the taste of XO liquor. XO durian is one of the smaller durian species; the flesh is typically watery, clumpy and bitter. It is famous for having a distinctively alcoholic after taste. 

Some of you might be asking whether is it safe to eat XO durian, as there are fatal incident of consuming durian together with alcohol? The reason being is because of the mindset itself, where the first impression of XO durian to many of us is that the durian contains liquor content, when they heard the name of “XO” liquor in it. That’s not right; it’s only the aftertaste of the durian itself that taste like a mild alcohol taste. It is not a mixture or fermentation of any alcohol on the durian. You won’t get drunk if you eat the XO durian. 

It is quite hard to look for XO durian as not many places in Asia having this breed of durian. Therefore, you should not be surprised with the selling price of this seasonal breed of durian, especially when the demand is very high during a limited supply. If you would like to get a cheaper price, maybe you will need to wait for the end season of the durian, where the durian is over supply and it could not be keep too long, else it will be rotten.