… I say eat your potato skins, damnit!
Yes, yes, there could potentially be some pesticide residue lurking on them, but hey, if you buy organic it surely won’t be that toxic, and you can always give them a good scrubbing to get the dirt off. Also, if you fry ‘em up real good and cripsy, that should pretty much guarantee safe eating, and all those vitamins and nutrients in the skin won’t go to waste.
While the skins of my taters — and yams, and turnips and carrots — don’t necessarily fit into all recipes, they can always be cooked separately or thrown into a soup stock. Often, there are enough lying around on the counter for a whole other meal. So while I’m sure the wormies love them, I’ll be keeping some skins to myself from now on.
January 20, 2008 at 2:33 am |
I never thought I’d ever say this, but that is one cute potato.
January 20, 2008 at 8:48 am |
The peels are so tasty!!!
January 20, 2008 at 1:09 pm |
A tip for those who do use fridge and/or freezer units — if veggies are well scrubbed prior to peeling, the peelings, tops, and tails can all go into a sealed 1 qt container in the freezer. When the container is full, put the bits into a cheese cloth bag and dump the bag into a stock pot with 4 quarts of water and some seasoning. After 4 hours on low heat, they’ll make a great vegetable stock.
January 20, 2008 at 3:58 pm |
it reminds me of Audrey 2 (remember her/it?)
January 20, 2008 at 5:56 pm |
I *love* potato skins
Root vegetables should be one of the lower-pesticide veggies, since nothing is getting sprayed directly on them unless it’s after they’re harvested. They might absorb stuff, but then peeling them wouldn’t help anyway.
January 20, 2008 at 6:15 pm |
Yeah, I actually get a little worried about root veggies, limesarah — that’s why one of my green changes was to be strict about the organic thing when it comes to squash, potatoes, turnips, etc. Apparently they suck up a LOT of evil from the soil. Even if it’s an organic farm, if there was DDT sprayed on the land 40 years ago there can still be trace elements entering the root veggies and tubers. Scary stuff. But yeah, skins or no skins doesn’t make a diff in that case.
And yes, dad, the Little Shop of Horrors does come to mind!
January 20, 2008 at 9:55 pm |
don’t have much time to write as I am busy glowing in the st. lucia sun… but potato skins are super healthy and there is actually a recipe if you wish to look it up called Dr. Lau’s (I think) Alkaline broth made from potato skins. Super great for alkalanizing and remineralizing the systerm when nutritents are lost from sickness, or binge drinking… great replacement for bone broth. The skins are the best part- sort of goes for all root vegetables. The minerals lie just below the skin layer so when you peel them… it all gets lost. Just rub-adub-scrub and buy organic and do not, i repeat DO NOT buy potatoes if their sku number begins with an ‘8′. 8 mean GMO, 9 mean organic.
January 20, 2008 at 11:18 pm |
How many other people just ran and checked their bag o’ tates? What does my “3″ mean?
Anyway, this is easy. I love potato skins. Especially red skins in mashed potatoes….mmmm, yummy.
January 21, 2008 at 3:14 am |
i do always leave on my potato skins. but if you don’t want them, you can also throw them in your compost insetad of the garbage – or as i do, in a bag of food scraps in my freezer that i bring to a compost collection each week.
January 21, 2008 at 4:51 pm |
This site has a little more about produce codes. http://www.innvista.com/health/foods/organics/labeling.htm
January 23, 2008 at 10:41 pm |
random addition is that you can also use potato skins as a poultice for open wounds in a pinch…keeps infection at bay….one of those random facts picked up in my studies that i’ll probably never utilize