Is It Safe To Eat The Skins of Fruits and Vegetables?

Juicing Peel or Keep?

A fan writes: “When juicing, should I leave the skins on or take them off?

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Pulp Seed Crackers — a way to use the pulp left over after juicing.

Also discussed: Scott Joseph’s book “The Chimp Diet” and his “Love Plantz” product line.

Quick Takeaway

Dr. Haley explains why he does not use one rule for every fruit and vegetable: he considers whether the peel is edible, what may be on its surface, and whether he enjoys its taste. He also discusses the fiber and other nutrients left behind in juicing pulp and shares his personal preferences for preparing different kinds of produce.

Juicing Vs. Eating Fruits and Vegetables

I suppose the answer is relatively the same whether you are juicing or just eating your fruits and vegetables. Juicers do remove most of the fiber and may not extract the juicy nutrients from the peel as well as from the pulp. So you will be missing out on many of the benefits of the peel… unless you eat your pulp too. “Pulp Seed Crackers” are an excellent way to consume the parts that juicers take out.

Centuries ago, there were wine presses… but not juicers. People ate their fruits and vegetables. You could imagine that they may have been picked from the tree, bush, or vine and often eaten on the spot… or put in a basket to take home to the family. There was no modern plumbing. The vegetation may not have even been rinsed. Many things were eaten with the skins on them… and the dust… and the soil spore probiotics and more.

Nowadays we have more to be concerned about. Fruits and vegetables in the produce section may have been sprayed with waxes to improve their appearance and ripeners to make them ready to eat. The farmers that grew them may have sprayed them with pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers. There may be a lot more on the skins to be concerned about.

Why Eat The Skins and Peels?

Not all skins and peels are edible. Often times, the skin and peels are there to protect the plant from insects, microbes, and animals. They may contain bitter phytochemicals that, in small quantities, may even have desired health or medical benefits. But often times, consumption in large amounts can cause serious health challenges and even death.

Sometimes it is inherently obvious if it is not edible. You can imagine how difficult it would be to eat through a pineapple skin. They are not meant to be eaten. And isn’t it obvious that garlic should be peeled? If you have ever cut into an aloe vera leaf and tasted to bitter yellow sap, you will likely never do it again. It is an experience similar to putting your hand on a hot stove; you will learn your lesson the first time! Yet some people do use that bitter sap medicinally as a laxative (I don’t think this is a good idea, though…).

But for a lot of fruits and vegetables, the skins are where the nutrients are the most dense. Thanks to the internet, you no longer have to be intuitive about these things. You can just search “what fruit and vegetable peels are edible” and what fruit and vegetable peels are inedible”. You can also observe the animals and see what they eat.

My friend Scott Joseph wrote an interesting book called “The Chimp Diet”. He observed that Chimpanzees ate the “whole fruit”… the whole banana… the whole avocado… Interestingly I found avocado skins on the inedible list. But I’m unsure of its true correct classification. Scott also has a delicious product line called “Love Plantz”… truly “whole food” juices with peels, pulp, and seeds included. Whether you agree wholly with his observations and products, it surely is worth considering.

Conclusion

For me, in most cases, I’m going to include the skins and peels. I certainly won’t be peeling carrots before juicing, but I’ll probably wash them. I’ll probably peel cucumbers because I don’t like their bitter skins – though they are edible. I’ll eat the whole apple but peel the banana… even though the peel is edible. Banana peels don’t appeal to me. I’d never juice a banana… the skins of potatoes are loaded with nutrients.

Chances are your juice cocktails are mostly the same fruits roots and vegetables over and over again. So it will be easy to look up their skins and peels edibility and decide whether or not to eat them. But one thing is for sure: Due your due diligence and know whether the skins were sprayed with chemicals and whether or not they are organic.

Medical Disclaimer

This podcast and article are provided for educational and informational purposes only and do not constitute medical advice. The experiences and opinions discussed are those of the speakers and should not replace diagnosis or treatment from a qualified healthcare professional. Do not begin, discontinue, or change any medication, supplement, diet, or treatment based solely on this episode.

Full Transcript

The transcript has been lightly formatted for readability. Because it was created from the recorded conversation, it may contain minor transcription errors.

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i’m dr michael haley with the dr haley show podcast and i’ve got another email question from one of our viewers and listeners and in this case richard asks when juicing should i leave the skins on or take them off and this really is a great question because there’s a lot of things to consider when deciding whether or not to consume the peels and skins or take them off and i think the answer kind of applies whether you’re juicing or just eating them or even cooking them but there are things to consider because there are differences between eating and juicing and cooking but let’s step back and just kind of look at the bigger picture should i leave the skins on or take them off there is obviously no simple answer to this lots of things to consider

but when you’re juicing we have a machine that’s essentially removing pulp and skin and it’s probably not extracting the nutrients out of the skin as well as it would if you could just eat the whole thing and you know your it goes through your digestive system which is pretty good at getting nutrients out of things especially if you chew your food really good and break it down to give your microbes your intestinal flora your digestive enzymes something to work with that’s already broken down and chewed into so the juicer will be missing a lot of those nutrients from the skin unless of course you do what i do and you keep the pulp and you make something like pulp seed crackers well now you’re getting all those nutrients anyway

so but you know and of course you’re not supposed to eat all skin some are you know obvious like for instance um it’s pretty intuitive that a pineapple skin is going to be cut off or removed and you’re going to eat the pineapple on the inside i don’t know anyone that’s ever tried to eat a pineapple skin probably not supposed to i’ve seen animals eat through it to get to the meat i’ve never really seen them eat the skin

you know if we go back in time centuries ago there were no juicers we may have had you know wine presses and things of that nature to get juice out of grapes or to oil from olives or you know things of that nature but there were no juicers you just ate things in fact you probably went to a tree and picked something off it and ate it right off the tree or maybe even picked it up off the ground and ate it and it was probably covered with well like dust from the air that may include soil spore probiotics things that are beneficial for you that nowadays we scrub off our fruits and vegetables and have to go buy those kinds of things in capsules instead

we cara carry a brand on our website at haleynutrition.com for that reason they seem to really help people that have their gut floras all messed up they help get things back in balance and people take them and they say wow ever since i’ve been taking this things work better well isn’t that amazing because you haven’t been getting those things naturally you haven’t been eating cultured or fermented foods and you haven’t been eating you know things right off the ground or off the bush

i remember you know years ago my son when he was little would go outside and stand in front of the fig tree and look for all the ripe figs and pluck them off and just eat him right there they would never make him into the house now back in the day you know mom may have went out and she probably nibbled off the tree but also filled up a basket and brought it back to the family and you know put those things on the table and then people ate and they probably didn’t wash them like we do now because well they didn’t even have plumbing like we do now things weren’t as accessible and besides isn’t that what you do you just eat things that grow you know it was a different time

nowadays you almost have to wash things because well i remember being at whole foods and you think well isn’t that where you get the expensive good stuff there was a sign on the wall that said some of our produce has waxes on it to improve the appearance and i think what that really means is waxes to slow down the rotting process of fruits and vegetables so that they can keep them out there longer so people can buy them over time and they won’t have as much spoilage i believe that’s probably the reason for them maybe it’s just the nice shiny appearance but there’s stuff on there that wasn’t part of the fruit or vegetable as it grew naturally

they also spray and i don’t know if whole foods does this but i know that in you know produce they can spray ripeners on things to get them you know who wants to buy completely green bananas let’s spray those and get them to ripen faster so they’re more attractive to the people that are shopping then they’ll take them home and have to eat them faster of course because they’re now in this hyper ripening phase

so there’s things on the fruits and vegetables you know there’s pesticides herbicides and fungicides which are going to be more prevalent on the peels or on the skins even organic fruits and vegetables they have organic pesticides that they can spray on them it’s a pesticide it’s something designed to kill bugs herbicides they kill weeds fungicides kill you know microbes like funguses and when we eat these things we’re feeding the food the things we chew up we’re feeding that to our gut flora our gut flora now has to consume chemicals that are designed to essentially kill them it doesn’t make sense

so in those circumstances it might make sense to scrub really good or even peel your fruits and vegetables you have to decide hopefully you know enough about what you’re getting and where they’re coming from and what might be on them so you can make that intelligent decision but in doing so know that you’re also getting rid of a lot of good nutrients

there’s more nutrients in the skins and peels of a lot of fruits and vegetables you know in a potato there’s a lot of vitamin c in the skins i like making things like potato salad and leaving the skins on them in apples there’s a lot of nutrients antioxidants vitamins minerals packed in the skin of those apples you know you might be getting twice the much nutrition out of the fruit just by leaving the skin on them um and if you put them through a juicer you might be extracting some of those nutrients there’s also a lot of fiber in the skins and in the peels that could be beneficial

again not all things should be consumed i consider the aloe vera leaf as an example the inner gel is relatively tasteless compared to the outer leaf which is extremely bitter if you cut into it and you you know just dab your finger in and bring to your lips or your tongue that yellow sap you know you’ll get that sour face like never before not that it’s sour it’s just bitter horrid and something instinctively tells you this is not food

now a lot of those things that are there to protect the plant and protect what’s in them from microbes or from animals and you know things that would destroy them funguses that might grow on them a lot of the things that are there to protect them can actually have anti-cancer or and other medicinal properties in the case of that sap in aloe vera people have used used it medicinally to treat constipation they use it as a laxative and at the same time in high mounts it’s been proven when taken by itself apart from the inner part of the plant it’s been demonstrated that to cause cancer in the intestines of rats and specifically the cells that make mucus increase in size probably because it’s an irritant and they need to make more mucus to protect the intestines and at a certain point in time they call that adaptive change cancer

so when given the outer leaf sap not the inner leaf gel that’s where all the you know nutrient gut healing skin healing immune boosting benefits are in the inner part of the leaf but the outer leaf when given in large quantities caused problems

so how do you know what things you should eat the skins on taking all that stuff into account some plants just inherently uh you know garlic you just something tells you i should peel this and i want what’s on the inside of it and i don’t want to eat the skins onions are kind of the same way and and i already mentioned pineapples

but if we watch the animals for instance i’ve seen pigs eat whole pumpkins skins and all okay the pumpkin the outer part probably isn’t desirable but probably not the most enjoyable or possibly even beneficial who knows if we watch the animals we can get a clue as to whether or not those skins and peels are edible you know horses will eat the whole apple okay doesn’t kill them it must be okay and we happen to know scientifically that there’s a lot of nutrients in those skins

i consider a book that was written by my friend scott joseph called the chimp diet he observed that chimpanzees would eat the whole fruit and the whole vegetable even things like avocados they would eat those skins even though if you do a search it’ll say that avocado skins are inedible so you have to make the decision on that one but he even created a beverage line of fruit juices called love plants plants spelled p-l-a-n-t-z where it’s truly whole food what i mean truly whole food i mean the whole food is in there with the peels and the pulp and the seeds it’s the juice with the rest of that fruit in there as well so interesting concept you can choose to learn from it or not

some of the things i don’t want in my juice you know when i when i juice i i tend to peel well i don’t peel carrots those i’ll wash a little bit i do peel beets even though the beet skins are edible it’s just a personal preference i do peel cucumbers even though they’re edible because i don’t like the bitterness even though it might be beneficial but you have to make the decisions on what you want to eat and you can learn and observe from the animals like scott joseph did

now chimpanzees only have half the lifespan that we do so i don’t know if that’s because they eat the skins who knows something to consider but um you decide let me know in the comments if i missed anything if you have any thoughts about whether or not to eat the skins or the peels of certain fruits and vegetables

i understand that even banana peels are edible i’m gonna peel my bananas but from what i understand you can just grab a banana and eat the whole thing i can already taste the skin and the fibers stuck in my teeth no thank you not for me but it’s an option

all right i’m dr haley thanks for checking out this video let me know in the comments your thoughts and don’t forget to like and subscribe