Making the Most of Things: Eating skins, the peel good factor

It is possible I will expose myself as a philistine, but I have rarely understood why anyone would peel a tomato or scrape out the seeds and discard them.  A tomato is like a woman- to be loved in totality.

Virtually every vegetable and fruit outer layer or peel/skin is edible and more often than not is a concentrated nutrient version of the flesh contained inside. The potato is a good example of the fact the skin has more nutrients per gram than the equivalent amount of the flesh. A simple guide to frugality, do not lose the peel!

Wash.

The skin of a fruit or vegetable is like the packaging and is the first barrier to the outside world. Treat it with respect.Unless you know exactly the journey your fruit or vegetable has taken on its way to your plate, wash them well.

Fruit and vegetables are now responsible for more large-scale outbreaks of food-borne illnesses than meat, poultry or eggs. Overall, produce accounts for 12 percent of food-borne illnesses and 6 percent of the outbreaks, up from 1 percent of the illnesses and 0.7 percent of outbreaks in the 1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Source Foodpoison Journal

• They are often treated with chemicals a long the way to reduce the incidence of insects eating them and to make them last longer in storage. 
• In areas where water is scare, the water used to supply the plants may be of questionable quality. 

Whilst organic locally produced fruit and vegetable is the best option, it is not always practical nor sadly affordable.Washing will significantly reduce the likelihood of problems occurring.

Making them Palatable.

Just because it is edible, doesn't make it palatable. I found one recipe for utilising banana skins in cooking but this was using the skin as a wrap for the contents and the author noted he could not eat the skins. However there are plenty of other uses for the skins of bananas including a cure for warts and a treatment for heamorrhoids! Check out the website below if you are interested.

http://blog.trashbackwards.com/2013/05/16/20-uses-for-banana-peels/

To eat other skins may take a change in attitude but are quite nice eaten as part of the fruit. Most people eat the skins of apples, peaches, pears and nectarines.  Kiwi fruit, apart from the hard knob connection hub to the plant is nice as are the skins of mangoes. Frugality sometimes takes a change in perception.

Citrus skin contains many super phytochemicals but again, eating the skin directly is not for the faint hearted. However, using the zest as flavouring, as a topping, as an addition to other foods is well tolerated. There are  ways to get the value from the skins without using them without alteration.

If you insist on peeling your vegetables consider utilising the peel in other ways.

• Make nachos using roasted potato skins instead of corn chips. 
• Use the skins of questionable palatability  in stocks and gravies.e.g chokos, broad beans, mature pumpkin
• Use the blender to hide the skin in soups or smoothies.
• Cut off some the skin to minimise the assault on your sensibilities e.g. eggplant
• Find recipes from other cultures that utilise the skins e.g. broad beans from the dailymail/uk A classic way to cook them is the way they do in Turkey, where they are served as a meze: Sauté a little chopped onion in olive oil a heavy, lidded saucepan until it softens, turn the heat down then add the beans - whole and washed - a good few squeezes of lemon juice a little sugar and salt, then leave to stew for about 15 minutes. Add enough water to come half way up the beans, some chopped dill leaves and let it simmer gently. Now cover the pan and cook for an hour until the pods are very tender. Leave to cool. Chill, then add more chopped dill. Serve with thick yoghurt into which you have stirred some chopped garlic. By the way, this is an authentic Turkish dish, and friends assure me it is supposed to that rather off putting colour.

 But seriously get used to eating the phytochemical rich skins. You can always discard them once they are on the plate if you do get a skin that is overly hard or dry.

A word of warning about potato skins. Potatoes contain glycoalkaloids which in higher concentrations can be toxic. A green potato often has higher than desirable level of these chemicals but if you remove the portion of the skin it should be fine. If a potato tastes bitter however, discard it. Potatoes are nutrient accumulators. Personally I would not eat potatoes grown in old car tyres. Cadmium which is used in the black pigment leaches into the soil and is accumulated in the potato as far as I am led to understand.

Potatoes from the garden. Nadine and purple congo varieties.