Peeled or Not(hing)

[digitS']

I peel very little and try like heck to convince my family it is because I love them so much I want them to be their healthiest. They know how much I hate peeling veggies. Used to be, eating the peels would get you a better meal than eating what was left after peeling so I just quit.

Believe it or not, but I have been given 4 (count 'em) four different peeling machines by family members who wanted out of the task themselves. A couple worked pretty well for a while, but none worked as well as a good stiff brush under running water -- clean, cut and cook -- don't peel.

I've been thinking about this now and then over the last few days and realizing that I have to get back ~ strongly ~ to my More Fruit regimen made me think of it again. @Smart Red 's quote is from the Cratered Asian Pears thread.

I'm having a honeycrisp apple this morning. It's a big one but I've got a nearly overripe banana to slice for my cereal after the apple. The banana isn't small and it's going in the cereal bowl with or without the cereal . Oh, I'll get several tablespoons in with the banana.

When I was a kid, I didn't think I liked apples. During my late 20's, I had quite a lot of problems with my health and decided that a better diet was needed. I was already a gardener but those summer green beans only went so far.

Mom was still pushing vitamins at me. Health, healthy, healthful -- I'd heard it all my life. Healthful enzymes in raw this and that. Okay, I'd take a peeled broccoli stem ... now and then ...

I didn't need to peel my green beans, had to get the husk off the sweet corn is all. Always ate my cucumbers raw, sliced tomatoes ... not too fond of lettuce but I'd eat it. No peeling a leafy green ...

I eat lots of leafy greens these days. Lots of carrots have to come out of the garden soon. Yellow squash, I probably better be careful with the winter squash - lots of calories there!

There are calories and then there are foods with calories and other nutrients. The garden still has plenty of leafy greens but they are fast coming in or the weather will be taking them out! What to do? I will get a few things into the greenhouse but - buy more broccoli? Sure.

It probably won't be the expensive organic broccoli, or pears or apples or bananas. I'll peel a broccoli stem; hope I'm not getting too much pesticides in the floret.

Oh yeah, I'm peeling the banana and that honeycrisp apple. Remember, I didn't like apples as a kid. When I grew up, I asked myself why. And, I started peeling and eating them.

I bet I average an apple a day for six months out of the year. Most of them are eaten raw - Healthful enzymes!! Some will go in the microwave with a couple of tablespoons of these premium raisins! I could splash some cream on them!! But, won't.

I figure eating a peeled apple is better than no apple at all. I'll have plenty of store bought broccoli, pears ... when are those ripe persimmons coming in?! I won't be peeling the raisins or dry figs, @Smart Red . Just doing the best I can.

Steve
who has no expectation of ever seeing DW eat an unpeeled potato

 

[Ridgerunner]

Where to even go with this. During the season I eat a lot of fresh berries, fruit, and tomatoes straight as I pick them, no washing and no peeling. During the off-season I eat a citrus every morning right after my cereal. If I suspect the fresh fruit I pick may have worms or bad spots I might use my pocket knife to cut it open but most of the time I just bite carefully and look to see if I need to spit or chew. I know, rude, crude and disgusting.

Back when growing up I'd pull a carrot or radish out of the garden, wipe most of the dirt off with my hands, and eat it. No washing or peeling though I'd probably bite the root off the radish first and spit. I still do that some though I tend to use my pocket knife to clean them up a bit instead of using my teeth. The pocket knife is cleaned by wiping it on my jeans. If they go on the table for a meal, I will wash and peel them first.

It's often fun to watch my wife eat an apple. She usually needs a vegetable peeler to peel it. Then she uses a large knife on a cutting board to quarter it. Then she uses a small knife to core it. Then the large knife is used to cut it into bite-sized pieces. Of course the apple pieces need to be put on a saucer to be carried to the table so she can sit down and eat it. Let's just say there is a little contrast to how we do some things here.

We both will eat a new potato, skin and all. But if it is not a "new" potato with thin skin, they get peeled before they are eaten by both of us. Often they are cooked in the peel though.

I used to slice a banana with my cereal but now I eat the citrus afterwards instead. For some reason rightly or wrongly I associate bananas with something you eat when you want to put on weight and I tend to put on weight. That probably stems from back in the very early 70's when my girlfriend-at-the-time's brother was under weight and ate four bananas just before the weight-in at the physical so he could qualify to join the army. He barely made the minimum weight. Having something dense in your stomach so you weigh more doesn't necessary translate to you actually weighing more but some associations are hard to shake.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I'd say with me it depends on the fruit. I tend to not eat the peel on a lot of the plums I eat nowadays, mostly because I tend to eat a lot of the older European plums (greengages, mirabelles etc.) many of which have skins that are a little on the sour and bitter side. So those I peel (or more accurately given their sizes, I mush them a little, bite a hole in one end and squeeze the innards out or rip them in half and gnaw the insides away.) Pomes (apples, pears etc) it depends on how tough the skin is (there is a reason some Asian pears are called "sand pears" and it has nothing to do with where they grow.)

 

[ninnymary]

Ridge, I got a kick after reading your post. That's alot of dishes your wife or you has to wash just for an apple!

I'm kind of like you, I don't peel apples and if I'm outside eating a strawberry that has a bad part to it, I just eat around it and throw the bad part into the compost bin or give to the chickens.

Bananas are carbs and they could put on pounds in your later years. But you can easily eat one a day and be fine.

Red potatoes, I don't peel.

Steve, my bananas have to be just right, not too green and not too ripe. If they are too ripe (meaning dark spots are starting to form) I make those into almond milk banana smoothies. If fact, I usually have one of these for breakfast with a couple of heaping teaspoons of almond butter. I just love this stuff. If I'm ever hankering for something sweet in the afternoon I'll have one of these if I didn't have one for breakfast.

Mary

 

[thistlebloom]

With the wheelbarrow loads of fresh greens you eat daily, I doubt you need to worry over peeling an apple Steve.

That's where I could make a big improvement, in the greens department. We like salads and eat them through spring and summer, but when it starts getting cold a salad loses it's appeal (a peel....snork! )
and dh has traumatic memories of any green that's cooked, canned spinach as a kid can do that!

I just need to be more creative and slip those greens in a little at a time in stir fry and soup I suppose.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ridge, I got a kick after reading your post. That's alot of dishes your wife or you has to wash just for an apple!

Mary

Mary, what makes you think SHE washes the dishes?

 

[Smart Red]

"Ridge, I got a kick after reading your post. That's alot of dishes your wife or you has to wash just for an apple!

Mary"

Mary is friendly, bright, and politically correct.
In my house, she makes the mess, she cleans it up. I do meals and kitchen duty for meals. Snacks are not on the menu or clean up schedule.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah, I like Mary too. That's why I feel like I can tease her as long as I'm not nasty. She's too nice to be really nasty toward.

Around here we both are on our own for breakfast, lunch, and/or snacks. Out schedules don't always work out for those meals so we do what we do. She normally fixes the meat course and starch and is responsible for overall menu planning for supper, but I normally fix the veggies. I'll put the chicken on for supper tonight in about an hour so sometimes I do the meat too. We're kind of flexible. I'm not sure how this evolved but I normally do the dishes. Probably from me needing to clean up counter space or wanting clean measuring cups and spoons for when I'm canning or putting something in the freezer.

 

[goatgurl]

I'm a peel on kind of girl. i even use to put the whole banana, peel and all in my raw smoothies until i found out how many chemicals are used on them. but i use a dish scrubbie to clean carrots, potatoes and the like. i even eat older potatoes with the peel. @Ridgerunner when i was a kid we use to pull the carrots etc, wash 'em in the cow trough then wipe them on our jeans and eat them.

 

[Nyboy]

One July I ended up in the ER with dehydration. While hooked up to a IV the Dr told me to eat at least 1 banana everyday during summer. I used to think bananas where ripe when they went from green to yellow, but not true, they are not ripe till they get brown spots.