Known in Iran as anar.
By Moji Tehrani, Founder · Updated Oct 5, 2026
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Read one chapter at a timeAnar. In Persian homes it isn't really treated as a fruit. It is treated as a small ceremony — carried in by hand, opened over a bowl, shared while everyone talks.
This guide is about what is actually inside it, what it does for the body, and how to use it without turning it into a supplement.
Punica granatum is a small, stubborn tree that tolerates drought, salty soil, and hot days with cold nights — the exact conditions of the Iranian plateau. The crown on top of every fruit is the old flower: the thick waxy base of the blossom, still there months later.
The fruit is organised into chambers divided by pale bitter membrane, and only the arils are meant to be eaten. Score the skin and break it apart along those natural chambers rather than cutting straight through the middle — you lose far less juice that way.
Look closely and you can see the pale seed suspended inside its red juice sac. Eat both. The seed is where the fibre is, and the whole fruit gives roughly 4 grams of fibre — juice gives none.
That single difference is the most useful thing in this guide: arils are food, juice is a drink.
The red comes from anthocyanins (the natural colour pigments that make fruit red, purple or blue). The punicalagins sit in peel and membrane, so whole-pressed juice carries more of them than squeezed arils. For how this fits into eating for the heart, see heart health after 60.
Is pomegranate good for blood pressure?
This is the best-supported finding in pomegranate research: a meta-analysis of randomized trials in people found that pomegranate juice modestly reduces systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Evidence strength: moderate. The effect is an average across studies — promising but not definitive, and not a guarantee for any one person. Most trials used juice, not the whole fruit or concentrated extracts, so the forms aren't interchangeable. Pomegranate is a food, not a treatment for high blood pressure, and it never replaces blood-pressure medication — if you take one, the small additive effect is worth mentioning to your doctor (see Medicines and Interactions).
Cholesterol and inflammation evidence is weak and mixed.
Not a cancer treatment. A good fruit with a real, small benefit.
A ripe pomegranate is heavy for its size and slightly angular — the flat faces appear as the arils swell and press against the rind. A perfectly round, light fruit is usually underfilled.
Skip split fruit in a shop; the exposed arils spoil fast. Colour tells you little — good pomegranates run from pale pink-brown to deep crimson.
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Most trials used about 240 ml a day — one glass, not a bottle. That glass has roughly 30 grams of sugar and no fibre, so it belongs beside a meal.
Ab-e anar is pressed whole to order. Sweetened or 'pomegranate-flavoured' drinks are a different product — check the label says 100% juice.
Ground walnuts slow-cooked with pomegranate molasses until the stew turns dark and glossy. The dish Persians reach for at weddings and at Yalda — and quietly good nutrition: walnut fats, pomegranate polyphenols (protective plant compounds), and a long gentle cook that needs no added fat.
A thick autumn soup of pomegranate juice, split peas, rice, and a great quantity of herbs, finished sour-sweet. The everyday face of the fruit — not a garnish but the acid backbone of a whole meal, in the season when pomegranates are cheap and everywhere.
Juice reduced until it's thick, dark, and intensely sour. A spoonful does the work of a lemon with more depth, and it keeps a year in the fridge.
Real rob-e anar lists pomegranate juice and nothing else. Cheap versions are cut with sugar, glucose syrup, or colour, and they taste flatly sweet instead of sharp.
Whole fruit keeps a month in the fridge. Loose arils about five days, or months frozen on a tray. Rinse juice-stained cloth cold immediately — heat sets the stain permanently.
Pomegranate juice can interfere with medicines the liver processes. The next chapter lists which ones. If you take any daily, speak to your doctor.
Peel, root, and concentrated extracts aren't the fruit. Those preparations can be genuinely toxic. Otherwise: eat the arils, enjoy the season, and let it be food.
Concurrent ACE inhibitors, ARBs, or strong antihypertensives — additive blood-pressure lowering.
Warfarin: possible enhanced anticoagulant (blood-thinning) effect.
Pomegranate root or stem bark — avoid (alkaloid toxicity); fruit and arils are safe.
If you take any of the medicines below daily, talk to your doctor or pharmacist before making this a regular habit.
Statins (simvastatin, atorvastatin, lovastatin) — Pomegranate may weakly inhibit intestinal CYP3A4 (a liver enzyme that breaks down many medicines) and raise drug levels; grapefruit-like caution at high juice intakes (>16 oz/day) (moderate concern).
ACE inhibitors / ARBs / antihypertensives — Pomegranate juice can add a mild blood-pressure-lowering effect. Welcome for many, but monitor if you tend to run low (moderate concern).
Warfarin — Case reports suggest possible potentiation of anticoagulation; keep intake steady and INR (the blood test that checks how fast your blood clots) monitored (moderate concern).
Insulin / sulfonylureas — Juice raises blood sugar; whole arils are safer for tight glycemic control (low concern).
On the longest night of the year the family stays up together, and pomegranate is on the table because its red is the colour of dawn. Poetry is read, the fruit is broken open, nobody is in a hurry. Whatever the polyphenols are doing, this part — several generations awake in one room until morning — is the older medicine.
End of the Pomegranate guide
