Don’t Just Chuck Your Fruit Scraps

Credit: Unsplash
You’d be surprised how much good is hiding in those icky bits.

Fruit is extremely passive aggressive. I know that sounds like something a crazy person would say, but it’s the only conclusion I can come to when I consider their distribution of nutrients. Fruit is full of important vitamins and minerals, everyone knows that, but did you know a large portion of a piece of fruit’s nutritional content can actually be found in the worst parts of it? Peels, stems, rinds, and so on are actually quite rich in nutrients, despite the fact that eating them is like eating mildly flavorful cardboard. If you can get a little creative, though, you can incorporate those scraps into your meals and reap the nutrition that the fruit was so determined to keep from you.

Peels from citrus fruits like oranges, grapefruit, and lemons are a great example. Any sensible person peels an orange before trying to eat it, but those peels contain just as much vitamin C as the fleshy bits. If you happen to own a zester, you can use those peels to make tasty toppings for meals and desserts.

How about the core of an apple? It’s hard, seedy, and generally unappealing, which is why people usually just chuck them. But the lion’s share of the bacterial boosters you’d get from eating an apple are actually concentrated within those hard cores. If you don’t want to eat it whole, try chopping it into bite-size bits.

Credit: Unsplash

I know you definitely haven’t tried eating the skin of a kiwi. Why would you wanna bite into something that’s brown and hairy? But that hairy skin, despite looking like something you’d find on the floor of a gas station bathroom, is chock full of vitamin c, antioxidants, and fiber. If you can’t stomach the idea of eating it whole, throw it into a blender! The blades will pulverize the little hairs, and you get to keep all the nutrition.