For fruits with soft skins, such as tomatoes, apples, pears, peaches, and apricots, eating them with the skin on is not only more nutritious but also provides a richer flavor and better texture. The skin of a ripe pumpkin and the skin of some grape varieties are also not very difficult to eat.
Recently, there has been a heated discussion about eating fruits and vegetables with their skins on. Some say that eating them with the skin exposes you to too many pesticides, which can cause cancer, while others insist that you must eat them with the skin to get the nutrients, leaving people confused.
Fruits and vegetables are very nutritious, serving as important sources of antioxidants in the diet, and contain soluble dietary fiber like pectin, which helps lower blood sugar, blood lipids, and blood cholesterol. The insoluble fiber in them promotes intestinal peristalsis and helps prevent colon cancer.
In most fruits that can be peeled, the peel and the flesh just beneath it are often the parts with the highest concentration of antioxidants. This is because the parts richest in antioxidants are usually the parts most exposed to sunlight; at the same time, the outer layers also tend to contain higher levels of vitamins and minerals.
Actually, for fruits with soft skins such as tomatoes, apples, pears, peaches, and apricots, eating them with the skin on is not only more nutritious but also provides a richer flavor and better texture. The skin of a ripe pumpkin and the skin of some grape varieties are also not very difficult to eat.
So, what about pesticide residues on the skins of fruits and vegetables? There's no need to worry too much about this. First, Chinese regulations do not permit the use of highly toxic pesticides on fruits and vegetables, which are foods that are eaten directly. Second, the commonly used organophosphate pesticides in China have a short residual period and decompose within a few days. According to relevant regulations, no pesticides are permitted to be used on fruits and vegetables for about a week before harvesting. Third, most fruits are eaten several days or even months after harvesting, by which time the pesticides have mostly decomposed. Therefore, the risk of acute or chronic pesticide poisoning from eating properly washed fruits and vegetables with their skins on is very small.
However, there are four fruit and vegetable skins you should never eat: Potato skins contain "solanine," which can cause poisoning if it accumulates in the body to a certain level. In ripe persimmons, tannic acid is mainly concentrated in the skin, and consuming too much can cause persimmon stones. Water chestnuts often grow in paddy fields, and their skins can contain parasites or eggs. Eating unwashed water chestnut skins raw can lead to illness. Sweet potato skins contain a lot of alkali, and eating too much can cause gastrointestinal discomfort.