Many people, by default, peel fruits and vegetables when preparing them.
But often there is simply no need for this. The peel contains important nutrients. Moreover, the discarded peel of fruits and vegetables contributes to climate change.
Fruits and vegetables are rich sources of vitamins, minerals, fibber and many phytochemicals (plant chemicals) such as antioxidants (substances that protect your cells from harmful effects). Insufficient intake of these nutrient-dense foods is associated with an increased risk of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. In 2017, the World Health Organization reported that around 3.9 million deaths per year worldwide are attributable to people not eating enough fruit and vegetables.
Eating 400 g of fruits and vegetables per day, as recommended by the WHO, is something difficult for many people to achieve. So could eating fruit and vegetable peels help solve this problem by adding important nutrients to people's diets?
That part of the fetes can certainly contribute. For example, the skins of seven root vegetables: beets, field mustard, carrots, sweet potatoes, radishes, ginger and white potatoes contain large amounts of vitamins such as vitamin C and riboflavin and minerals such as iron and zinc. And the USDA shows that raw apples contain 15% more vitamin C, 267% more vitamin K, 20% more calcium, 19% more potassium and 85% more fibber than their refined counterparts. In addition, many peels are rich in bioactive phytochemicals such as flavonoids and polyphenols, which have antioxidant and antimicrobial properties.
Another reason not to give up the skin is its impact on the environment. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, uneaten food, including the skin, generates 8%-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. (Food rotting in landfills releases methane, the most potent greenhouse gas.) New Zealand alone throws away 13,658 tons of vegetable peels and 986 tons of fruit peels annually — and that's a country of just 5.1 million people.
Given the nutrient content of the peel and its contribution to food waste, why do people peel fruits and vegetables at all? Some of them, such as bananas, oranges, melons, pineapples, mangoes, avocados, onions and garlic, really need to be peeled, because their outer parts are inedible, unpleasant to taste, difficult to chew, or simply can cause harm. Also, cleaning may be necessary according to the recipe, for example, when preparing mashed potatoes. But many skins, such as potato, beet, carrot, kiwi and cucumber, are perfectly edible, but people still continue to get rid of them.
Pesticide residues
Some people peel fruits and vegetables because they are concerned about the presence of pesticides on the surface. Pesticide residues certainly remain on or just below the surface, although this depends on the type of plant. But most of these residues can be removed in the process of washing the product. Indeed, the US Food and Drug Administration recommends that people wash produce thoroughly under cold water and scrub with a stiff brush to remove pesticides, dirt and chemicals from the surface.
Cooking methods such as boiling and steaming can also reduce pesticide residues. But not all pesticide residues are removed during washing and cooking. And people concerned about pesticide exposure may still want to peel. Lists of pesticide content in fruits and vegetables are available in some countries. This can help you decide which fruits and vegetables should be peeled and which can be eaten as is.
If you want to learn more about fruit and vegetable peels and what to do with them, there are tons of tips online, including how to use the peels for composting, feeding worms, or incorporating them into recipes. With a little effort and ingenuity, you can help reduce waste and increase your fruit and vegetable consumption. Definitely worth a try! After all, in this case, you will at least contribute to the achievement of one of the goals of the UN in the field of sustainable development: to halve food waste by 2030.
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