Day 17
On my street, some people tend to discard their trash on the ground. I’m not sure why. Maybe the setting feels too urban and detached, so they lack a sense of connection and pride to the neighborhood. I’m always finding cups, wrappers, and even the occasional pair of socks on my sidewalk. I lean down, pick up what someone else left me—albeit, not as a gift—and put the item into the trash.
One day I noticed a crumpled yogurt sippy container with the words “for kids” up in the corner. My first thought (even though I’ve been a parent looking for a quick snack for my kids 🙂 ) was, an apple would have given the child an edible wrapper, plus the highest level of nutrients.
I know. An apple doesn’t have monkey cartoons on it. Still. The skins are generally the healthiest part of any fruit or vegetable. (Similarly, the crust is the healthiest part of bread, because nutrients move outward when the bread cooks.)
So there’s good reason to feed whole foods to ourselves and our children, even if it takes a bit of convincing to get the job done. If we are having trouble making our case to eat the peels, we can grind the skins up and put them into baked goods, or add them to vegetable stock as a start. We can make chips with skins, too—especially skins we hadn’t thought of eating, like pumpkin or other squashes.
As a bonus, when we eat the peels, we not only get more nutrients, but we also reduce food waste—a solution that sits at #3 in the Top 80 Game Changers for curbing climate breakdown.
Writing Prompt
Do you eat the skins of fruits like apples, peaches, pears, and plums? How about the skins of more unusual things, like pumpkin or even banana? Onion and garlic skins can go into vegetable stock. Citrus skins can be made into marmalade or added to Chinese or Thai foods. Look up a food whose skin you usually don’t eat. Discover its star nutrients. Then put the food (with its edible wrapper) into a poem.
Natural Wrap
It’s a trap, this wrap—
a trap for the good,
for the boys in the hood
(and the men, and the girls,
and the cool women, too)
if only we knew,
it’s a chew, it’s a steal,
for real,
that steels us
against what would
take us, make us weak.
fake us out,
put us down
in the ground.
It’s a peel with appeal.
And it’s free
for the taking.
No faking.
—L.L. Barkat
