July 30, 2010, Newsletter Issue #44: The Skinny on Fruit Skins
Tip of the Week
Our ancestors used to pick fruit off a tree and eat it. End of story. No washing or peeling. And when they made juice, the whole fruit went in. In modern times, we like to sanitize our fruit. We often have to remove the peel, the seeds and the pulp before we're prepared to look at it, let alone eat it.
But it looks like our ancestors were on to something. While eating fruit is good for us, eating whole fruit is even better. This is because much of the goodness of fruit can be found in the bits we throw away.
Recent research shows that the skins of fruit contain flavonoids and other substances that help to protect and improve our health. Some of these nutrients protect us from the sun and reduce the risk of certain cancers.
Fruit pulp is equally useful. The pulp of a fruit contains a large part of its flavonoids, vitamins, minerals and fiber. Get rid of those and half the goodness is gone. For example, apples are a high fiber fruit, but when you drink it as juice most of that fiber has been washed away. So to get the most of our fruit, we need to eat the fruit whole.
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