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Eating Fruit Skins

Eating Fruit Skins

surprisetalk

Comments (168)

  • bastawhiz
    > Alex rightly points out that apple seeds do contain cyanide. Turns out, it’s not a huge risk for normal apple consumption.You don't have to eat them. There's no benefit to eating them. They don't taste good. They provide a negligible amount of nutrition, if any, and harm you very mildly. The stem of an apple is edible, but for what? A gram of extra fiber after you manage to gnaw through it?You can eat banana peels, but you probably wouldn't want to. It's a terrible texture and flavor. They decompose well, so there's no meaningful environmental benefit. Yes, they have nutrients. You can eat a second piece of fruit instead.And this is not universally good advice. The seeds, leaves, and stem of the pawpaw is filled with toxins—enough that folks have died from it.I don't think the author is trying to make a point, but rather to show that we do things because we were told them. But it's important to also realize that the cultural reasons are sometimes backed up with hard-earned lessons or to save us from having to learn for ourselves that watermelon rind isn't pleasant to eat without preparing it in other ways.
  • Dove
    In broad strokes, the skins of things are high in nutrients, medicines, fiber, and toxins - natural, agricultral, and environmental. The degree to which each of these things is true depends very much on what specifically you are trying to eat, where it comes from, and sometimes its condition.It is easy to forget, but plants aren't inherently safe. Produce has been made so by breeding, historical wisdom, and by laws and customs and systems. While some of these things are overcautious or corrupt, others may be keeping you safe without you realizing it. Eating things you aren't expected to eat is playing with the safeties off, to some degree.I wouldn't think you'd get into too much trouble eating the skins of things you'd find in the grocery store, but green potatoes would certainly be an exception. I'd mostly want to wash a akin I intended to eat very well, as I'd mostly worry what might have been sprayed on that part on the assumption I wouldn't eat it.The further you get away from expectation - stems, seeds, leaves - the further you are from built in safety measures and the closer you are to eating a random plant. Even knowing that people consider something medicine is not a free pass. Medicines come with dosages and side effects. Drugs powerful enough to help you are usually also poweful enough to hurt you, and this is often similarly true with plants.All of that is not exactly to dissuade you from trying things, and toxic bits of things are usually obvious and not too dangerous in small quantities. Still, it's worth starting small and doing the odd search first. You never know when a particular breed of apple, grown under particular conditions, will have unusually potent seeds, and you want to have some understanding of how quickly certain toxins accumulate and clear. We do have a lot of accumulated knowledge on food safety, and it is worth consulting if you are going to step off the usual path.On the other hand, lots of things known to be beneficial and safe are considered unpalatable due to being rough and unsweet, but you can certainly develop a taste for them. Wheat bran and potato skins are among my favorites.
  • traceroute66
    Yeah, erm.You should only ever eat fruit skins if the fruit is organic and the skin is clean.At this point I think its safe to say there are hundreds of scientific studies out there telling you why. This is one example[1].I quote from their abstract: Notably, the distribution of pesticides in the apple peel and pulp layers is visualized through Raman imaging, confirming that the pesticides penetrate the peel layer into the pulp layer (∼30 μm depth). Thus, the risk of pesticide ingestion from fruits cannot be avoided by simple washing other than peeling. [1] https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c01513
  • RALaBarge
    I ate Kiwis for years before someone told me most people DO NOT eat the skins. I looked at my bag of kiwis, and the even the damn monkey mascot was holding a spoon...mocking me...
  • motionlessveloc
    Grapes are commonly peeled in Japan, and people will look at you strangely if you eat them skin on. However, Japanese grapes are huge and have a thick, astringent skin that peels off easily.Likewise, when Japanese people go overseas and start peeling grapes, people look at them strangely. Eventually they figure out that Western grapes are small, hard to peel and the skins are thin and nearly tasteless, so they adopt our barbarian habits too.Updated to add: Japanese grapes like Kyoho are actually hybrid cultivars of Western grapes (Vitis vinifera) and Concord grapes (Vitis labrusca), which is why they're so different.
  • sho_hn
    When I realized you can just eat kiwi with the skin on (if it's a very hairy one, brush them off under running water) and in no time it actually tastes better (adds some lovely contrast), it became my favorite zero-ennui fruit. It almost feels like a cheat code for something so tasty and large to require so little effort!Now, I never thought that kiwi skins are not edible of course, but I just assumed they're somehow unpleasant because everyone seems to peel or spoon them.
  • niemandhier
    If you eat enough kiwis with skin, tarantula abdomens start to look like something tasty.I read that online, I trained myself to eat whole Kiwis and lo and behold: It is true!Our brains are so wonderfully strange!
  • phyzome
    If you're going to eat an apple this way, some notes:- Start from the blossom end (the bottom). This makes the core more palatable for multiple reasons.- The blossom remains themselves may have mold in very rare cases. Take a look before you start eating.- Some apples have much, much harder core walls and are not really edible this way. Others are quite soft. So it will depend on variety.- Don't bother eating the stems and seeds. It's pointless.I really only do this when I don't have a place to put the apple core, e.g. on a road trip if I don't have a trash/compost bag. (Can't throw it out the window because it will attract wildlife to the roadside.)
  • xg15
    The guy has not heard of pesticides.
  • almog
    Not far from where I live, there are plenty of strawberry fields where I go outside to run. Over the years I found that every year, they'd throw huge amount of perfectly edible fruit in big piles at the edges of the field. Last spring I started collecting them in 5 gallon pails. The plan was to use them for Jam. Being quite lazy, I figured it'd be too much of an effort for me to cut the leaves. I wasn't sure what to expect but I love the result, the leaves added some really nice texture and offered no offending flavor that I could detect.
  • RyJones
    I eat the whole orange, grapefruit, lemon or lime.I like the bitter to offset the sweetness.
  • dvh
    I had a college who would meticulously cut that black thing at the bottom of the apple and also quite a bit of actual apple flesh, like 1cm or even more around it. When I asked him why he cut so much, he said that the black thing is remnant of apple flower and when apple tree is in the bloom it is the most sensitive so they apply most pesticides then and the concentration is highest around that black part. By cutting it away with little bit of flesh he removes most of the pesticides that are in the apple. It didn't help, few years later he died of cancer.
  • scentoni
  • dbacar
    Looking at the pesticide scores, one should not eat any fruit/vegetable without peeling if it has any.
  • cush
    People throw away so much strawberry in an effort to cut the leaves off. Just eat the leaves. Next time you go to eat a strawberry, try eating the leaves too - they're very mild in flavor, and you waste no strawberry!
  • sandesh247
    Eating an apple the right way: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/42b8Zah8-jM
  • dash2
    This reminds me of the Craig Brown parody of Tony Benn's diary: "eat a banana, first being careful to discard the fleshy part inside".
  • bobbiechen
    I do like to save watermelon rinds and cook them into soup.Anyone have a use for banana peels?
  • hdrz
    I always eat the whole thing, especially an apple, skin seeds and all. It’s natural to me. Also kiwi with it’s skin. I only peel mango, it’s skin is not tasty…
  • anon
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  • mint5
    Cherimoya skins regularly consumed cause Parkinson’s like symptoms.Some fruit skins are okay, others are not.And some are only okay if home grown or organic bc the skin is otherwise loaded with pesticide residues
  • jeltz
    I eat whole cherries, I am too lazy to spit out the pits do I swallow them whole. So far it has not been any issue at all and I eat a lot of cherries.
  • pragmatic
    https://www.britannica.com/story/can-apple-seeds-kill-youAlso, don’t feed them to dogs especially small dogs.Highly unlikely to be a problem but people die from water poisoning so…
  • 0x457
    I almost always eat citrus skins after eat the citrus. With Pomelos its like second breakfast.
  • mstaoru
    Gotta love my durian skins. If not I'll settle for rambutans.
  • dempedempe
    I've eaten the peel on a pineapple before. Not so bad actually.I thought eating the skins on kiwis was normal
  • Nouridin
    apple skins are so good and necessary actually and i think they add most of the taste
  • EvanAnderson
    I am reminded of the saying in my family: Anything is edible if you're willing to eat it.My late father-in-law ate entire apples-- core and all. I've tried but I can't stomach the texture or how much more the fibrous parts of the core get stuck in my teeth. It doesn't disgust me, I just don't prefer it.Not to miss an opportunity to talk about apples:I started eating three apples / day for lunch last year. I hadn't realized how dirty apples are. I assumed the washing they get in processing gets them pretty clean. It does not. I wet them and clean the stem and flower areas with a paper towel. I'm shocked at how dirty the towel ends up.I'm a sweet apple kind of guy. Envy apples are the bomb. I used to like Honeycrisp but the rumors of their being bred into shitty tastelessness are true. They're terrible. Shockingly, sometimes Red Delicious, which I'd previously relegated to the "buy as a last resort" list, are actually pretty good now. Fuji, Gala, and Cosmic Crisp are all decent specimens.My wife likes Pink Lady but I think they're just a little too tart. She can also put away the Granny Smiths which I find to be horrifyingly sour. Ick!Anybody have feelings about other apple varieties a person like me might be into?
  • rsktaker
    Golden kiwis + skin = my favorite fruit-experience OAT
  • lsch1033
    Well certainly not for every fruit... especially after you learn that durian is an edible fruit
  • intrasight
    I eat the apple skin (of most apples) but I do not eat the core.
  • GlenTheMachine
    I mean, deer (and cows and goats and sheep, but not horses) are ruminants. They can eat all sorts of things humans can’t digest: grass, tree leaves, most weeds, etc).The evolution of the rumen was one of nature’s best tricks.
  • globular-toast
    This is quite funny timing as just a few days ago my partner, who eats kiwis almost every day, tried eating the whole kiwi. She used to scoop it out but now says she'll never go back. It's also way more convenient as there are no tools required.
  • NoImmatureAdHom
    You can eat whole boiled eggs too. Shell and all.
  • busymom0
    On a related note, a friend of mine removed both the skin and even the center core (the seeds part) of cucumbers. I think all that's left is about 30% of the cucumber.I found that truly bizarre. Her reasoning was that it was too watery (???)
  • tiahura
    Mango skin, leaves, and sap contain compounds related to urushiol, the allergen in poison ivy.
  • martythemaniak
    Well, they're all editable, only question is if you like it and if the fruit skinn itself is good. I eat most kiwis with the skin on because it's a nice tart/acidic contrast to soft sweet insides, but some kiwis have extremely thick and acidic. Most pear cores are soft and sweet, but very few apple cores, nor worth it.
  • pKropotkin
    Stupid zoomers
  • fitsumbelay
    good post. much appreciated
  • DanielVZ
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  • ksudb
    [dead]