Eating fruit and vegetable scraps such as peels and stalks could provide a health boost that most of us are missing, say UK researchers.
They say scraps are an overlooked source of dietary fibre and are encouraging people to try “root-to-tip” eating, including watermelon rind, pineapple core and butternut squash seeds.
Indeed. I tried this during the pandemic, in an attempt to both eat healthier and waste less food. Then I got hit with diverticulitis, because it turns out not everyone can digest all that inedible shit.
I mean, if you start at class war it’s definitely noise. If you’re starting at diet and lifestyle it’s just a clickbaity headline for “people often consider nutritious parts of food to be scraps”.
It’s basically a step past telling people that the skin on a potato tastes fine and has vitamins, so try eating it when you make a baked potato, or leave it on when making soup".
The point the image is trying to make is that they want us to eat the normally distasteful stuff we tend to discard, and have done for time immemorial, when there is such a wealth inequality going on in the world.
I haven’t read the linked scientific article, admittedly, as linked from the BBC page. Does it really suggest such a basic thing that you can eat the broccoli stem? This is new to people?
I’ll object to the melon rinds someone suggested though. That I will not eat. 🤐
A lot of people don’t eat the broccoli stems. Broccoli is the floret, so they just eat the pretty part. Same as how some people don’t eat the skin on their potatoes because that’s the dirty part.
I’d try the melon rind purely because it’s different than it sounds: it’s not a bowl of watermelon rind. You remove the green part and then pickle it. Given what pickling can do to change a cucumber texture I’d be open to trying it. That being said, I’m not a huge fan of pickles, so most likely it’s capped at a pretty low score for me.
And that’s part of why I’d push back on the culture war angle. Many of these are not things we’ve found distasteful since time immemorial. Roast squash seeds are sold in stores. Pickled watermelon rind is a southern food. Banana peel curry is well prexisting in southeast asia.
If you look at it from the angle that you received the broccoli stem information, but remember that each item has someone out there saying the same thing, it’s a lot less solidly “normalizing eating trash” and more “clickbaity news headline - eat more fiber”.
Either way you turn or twist this, it’s not worth our time discussing. Click bait is enough distraction as it is. There is far worse shit to deal with right now. Let’s keep our focus here, guys.
There’s no “publish or die” “noise” for the BBC because their money comes from the TV License which anybody who sees live TV by any means (so, even from the Internet and even other channels) in Britain is legally obligated by Law to pay (it’s actually a Crime if they don’t) so they don’t really need to compete and are at no risk of dying.
This is just another article from the BBC preparing the plebes for another round of Bailouts For The Rich Austerity For The Rest, same as in 2008 Crash.
Just a couple of days ago they published an article from a Think Tank (i.e. a Technocratic Excuse Maker Funded By The Ultra-rich) about how things are going to get worse for people and they’ll have to tighten their belts.
The BBC is very much the Voice Of The British Elites and well known for their constant use of Manufacturing Consent techniques (their coverage of the Gaza Genocide is a particularly obvious recent example of that) so their motivations for chosing or not to publish something like this and how to frame it tend to be highly positivelly correlated with how to best serve the interests of said British Elites.
IMHO this article which is essentially about how eating the stuff you would normally throw away is actually good for your health, similarly to the recent one I mentioned above which was about how “everything was perfect and now hard times are coming through no fault of anybody and we just have to accept it” is about getting common people in a mindset to more easilly accept Austerity (and judging what happened in 2008-2018, that Austerity will be a direct consequence of government bailing the rich out and then refusing to increase taxes on said rich to pay for it and instead making everybody else pay for it).
I’m saying that the BBC chose to publish a story based on that paper from April instead of countless other stories and frame it as they did because it portrays the practices of the poor as being a good thing.
People don’t throw that stuff away because it’s unhealthy, they throw it away because it doesn’t taste as good as the rest and they do so because they can afford to throw out the unpleasant to eat parts to eat even if they’re nutritious.
It’s only the poor who don’t and they don’t because they have no other choice.
I don’t agree with that interpretation. It’s literally “people should be eating more fiber at the same time they’re throwing away a lot of fiber”.
Poor people aren’t scraping the food stores for dietary fiber or fretting about how they’ll afford a modest reduction in the long term risks of certain forms of colon disease.
For goodness sake, one of the tips is to make roast squash seeds. That’s not eating the unpalatable part, people buy those.
It’s not “eat like the poor” it’s “cook like a restaurant”. That thing you don’t need for this recipie is great for this other one.
I think you are both under and overestimating how much people know about cooking. People will trim off the better tasting parts of food and throw it away because it looks funny or isn’t there at a restaurant.
It looks funny because living organisms don’t have a lot of clean, straight lines and are often squishy and lumpy. The restaurant removes it because it’s too variable to cook without attention that’s too expensive to give, it’s too small for sale, or it simply messes up a clean presentation. So instead it gets quickly cooked and eaten by them, taken home by the chef, or added to soup or broth.
Being terrible at cooking and kitchen management cuts across economic lines.
Maybe that’s a very UK specific thing, because I come from a very poor Portuguese background and people ate pretty much EVERYTHING that could be eaten both animal and vegetable and my parents who grew up in deep poverty have it so ingrained that even today when they’re in their 80s and don’t at all need to do it, their “waste not” spirit remains strong and things like the hard tasteless bits of cabbage (which are definitely full of fiber given their texture) still end up in the pan with the rest.
Lack of culinary education?
It’s a significant driver of multigenerational health and dietary inequity. Poor people in urban areas have neither the time nor resources to cook properly, so they don’t. Then their children don’t learn, and the cycle gets worse. Obesity rates rise, health deteriorates, and the costs to manage that go up, making it harder and harder to break the cycle.
At least where I am, access to a variety of animals and vegetables is out of reach for those in poverty, and no one ever taught them what to do with them anyway.
So you end up with people eating mostly kraft macaroni, hot dogs and canned beans, cooked in a peeling Teflon pan and garnished with ketchup to taste.
Or maybe you have money, so you mostly eat takeout.
It’s why adult cooking classes are a thing that targets “entry level”, like how to cook eggs (the easy ways) or cut an onion, and food banks offer classes in how to cook the food they’re giving you. A potato is useless as food if you do not know how to cook a potato.
I don’t think “eat melon rinds because they have fiber” is quite the culinary education you seem to think it is.
I’m from Portugal, known for the Mediterranean Diet, and from what I see here compared to living in countries like Britain, culinary education is not about using the unpleasant parts of veggies for their fiber, it’s using fresh veggies in the first place.
That’s the problem I saw with the poor in Britain - they’ll eat lots of cheap carbs and not enough vegetables.
Using the unpleasant parts of the veggies for fiber (which is not a nutrient as the human body cannot break it up or absorb it, it’s just filling and keeps your digestive system clean) is just poverty.
This article is definitelly not about teaching people to eat the right things.
Nah, none of what you’re saying is lost on me or something I didn’t know. I think you’re misinterpreting what we’re/at least I’m saying, given you just made that comment. But it’s cool, it’s good that you’re bringing this up, because it’s also important.
But not important in the context of the class war, of course, and genocides going on.
I doing know why people don’t like pineapple core; it’s like a crunchier, milder pineapple. And pumpkin seeds are eaten quite commonly as a snack throughout the world.
I’m not sure I could do watermelon rind, but I legitimately like pineapple core, and I know some people who roast the squash seeds and absolutely love em, like big sunflower seeds.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cw5ynver15jeo
I was going to agree with the article, but nevermind. There has to be a better way to get your fiber.
Indeed. I tried this during the pandemic, in an attempt to both eat healthier and waste less food. Then I got hit with diverticulitis, because it turns out not everyone can digest all that inedible shit.
There definitely are. This is some bullshit “publish or die” noise. Please ignore and focus on the class war. 😅💟
I mean, if you start at class war it’s definitely noise. If you’re starting at diet and lifestyle it’s just a clickbaity headline for “people often consider nutritious parts of food to be scraps”.
It’s basically a step past telling people that the skin on a potato tastes fine and has vitamins, so try eating it when you make a baked potato, or leave it on when making soup".
We are in a class war, so we’re starting at the class war. 🤷♂️
I meant more that the article doesn’t seem relevant to class war unless you’re already choosing to look at it that way.
How does a wealth tax increase my dietary fiber in a meaningful way that “eating more than the broccoli floret” doesn’t?
The point the image is trying to make is that they want us to eat the normally distasteful stuff we tend to discard, and have done for time immemorial, when there is such a wealth inequality going on in the world.
I haven’t read the linked scientific article, admittedly, as linked from the BBC page. Does it really suggest such a basic thing that you can eat the broccoli stem? This is new to people?
I’ll object to the melon rinds someone suggested though. That I will not eat. 🤐
A lot of people don’t eat the broccoli stems. Broccoli is the floret, so they just eat the pretty part. Same as how some people don’t eat the skin on their potatoes because that’s the dirty part.
I’d try the melon rind purely because it’s different than it sounds: it’s not a bowl of watermelon rind. You remove the green part and then pickle it. Given what pickling can do to change a cucumber texture I’d be open to trying it. That being said, I’m not a huge fan of pickles, so most likely it’s capped at a pretty low score for me.
And that’s part of why I’d push back on the culture war angle. Many of these are not things we’ve found distasteful since time immemorial. Roast squash seeds are sold in stores. Pickled watermelon rind is a southern food. Banana peel curry is well prexisting in southeast asia.
If you look at it from the angle that you received the broccoli stem information, but remember that each item has someone out there saying the same thing, it’s a lot less solidly “normalizing eating trash” and more “clickbaity news headline - eat more fiber”.
Either way you turn or twist this, it’s not worth our time discussing. Click bait is enough distraction as it is. There is far worse shit to deal with right now. Let’s keep our focus here, guys.
What am I turning or twisting? If it’s not worth the time to discuss, why were you here in the first place?
I think it’s worth discussing people diluting the concept of class war by calling random things class war.
There’s no “publish or die” “noise” for the BBC because their money comes from the TV License which anybody who sees live TV by any means (so, even from the Internet and even other channels) in Britain is legally obligated by Law to pay (it’s actually a Crime if they don’t) so they don’t really need to compete and are at no risk of dying.
This is just another article from the BBC preparing the plebes for another round of Bailouts For The Rich Austerity For The Rest, same as in 2008 Crash.
Just a couple of days ago they published an article from a Think Tank (i.e. a Technocratic Excuse Maker Funded By The Ultra-rich) about how things are going to get worse for people and they’ll have to tighten their belts.
The BBC is very much the Voice Of The British Elites and well known for their constant use of Manufacturing Consent techniques (their coverage of the Gaza Genocide is a particularly obvious recent example of that) so their motivations for chosing or not to publish something like this and how to frame it tend to be highly positivelly correlated with how to best serve the interests of said British Elites.
IMHO this article which is essentially about how eating the stuff you would normally throw away is actually good for your health, similarly to the recent one I mentioned above which was about how “everything was perfect and now hard times are coming through no fault of anybody and we just have to accept it” is about getting common people in a mindset to more easilly accept Austerity (and judging what happened in 2008-2018, that Austerity will be a direct consequence of government bailing the rich out and then refusing to increase taxes on said rich to pay for it and instead making everybody else pay for it).
Hm? Are you saying these guys work for the BBC?
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09637486.2026.2734852
I’m not sure I follow your logic.
I’m saying that the BBC chose to publish a story based on that paper from April instead of countless other stories and frame it as they did because it portrays the practices of the poor as being a good thing.
People don’t throw that stuff away because it’s unhealthy, they throw it away because it doesn’t taste as good as the rest and they do so because they can afford to throw out the unpleasant to eat parts to eat even if they’re nutritious.
It’s only the poor who don’t and they don’t because they have no other choice.
I don’t agree with that interpretation. It’s literally “people should be eating more fiber at the same time they’re throwing away a lot of fiber”.
Poor people aren’t scraping the food stores for dietary fiber or fretting about how they’ll afford a modest reduction in the long term risks of certain forms of colon disease.
For goodness sake, one of the tips is to make roast squash seeds. That’s not eating the unpalatable part, people buy those.
It’s not “eat like the poor” it’s “cook like a restaurant”. That thing you don’t need for this recipie is great for this other one.
I think you are both under and overestimating how much people know about cooking. People will trim off the better tasting parts of food and throw it away because it looks funny or isn’t there at a restaurant.
It looks funny because living organisms don’t have a lot of clean, straight lines and are often squishy and lumpy. The restaurant removes it because it’s too variable to cook without attention that’s too expensive to give, it’s too small for sale, or it simply messes up a clean presentation. So instead it gets quickly cooked and eaten by them, taken home by the chef, or added to soup or broth.
Being terrible at cooking and kitchen management cuts across economic lines.
Maybe that’s a very UK specific thing, because I come from a very poor Portuguese background and people ate pretty much EVERYTHING that could be eaten both animal and vegetable and my parents who grew up in deep poverty have it so ingrained that even today when they’re in their 80s and don’t at all need to do it, their “waste not” spirit remains strong and things like the hard tasteless bits of cabbage (which are definitely full of fiber given their texture) still end up in the pan with the rest.
Lack of culinary education? It’s a significant driver of multigenerational health and dietary inequity. Poor people in urban areas have neither the time nor resources to cook properly, so they don’t. Then their children don’t learn, and the cycle gets worse. Obesity rates rise, health deteriorates, and the costs to manage that go up, making it harder and harder to break the cycle.
At least where I am, access to a variety of animals and vegetables is out of reach for those in poverty, and no one ever taught them what to do with them anyway.
So you end up with people eating mostly kraft macaroni, hot dogs and canned beans, cooked in a peeling Teflon pan and garnished with ketchup to taste. Or maybe you have money, so you mostly eat takeout.
It’s why adult cooking classes are a thing that targets “entry level”, like how to cook eggs (the easy ways) or cut an onion, and food banks offer classes in how to cook the food they’re giving you. A potato is useless as food if you do not know how to cook a potato.
I don’t think “eat melon rinds because they have fiber” is quite the culinary education you seem to think it is.
I’m from Portugal, known for the Mediterranean Diet, and from what I see here compared to living in countries like Britain, culinary education is not about using the unpleasant parts of veggies for their fiber, it’s using fresh veggies in the first place.
That’s the problem I saw with the poor in Britain - they’ll eat lots of cheap carbs and not enough vegetables.
Using the unpleasant parts of the veggies for fiber (which is not a nutrient as the human body cannot break it up or absorb it, it’s just filling and keeps your digestive system clean) is just poverty.
This article is definitelly not about teaching people to eat the right things.
Nah, none of what you’re saying is lost on me or something I didn’t know. I think you’re misinterpreting what we’re/at least I’m saying, given you just made that comment. But it’s cool, it’s good that you’re bringing this up, because it’s also important.
But not important in the context of the class war, of course, and genocides going on.
I’m honestly asking: did you reply to the wrong comment in the thread? You’re not the person I replied to.
Otherwise I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
You said, “you are both under and overestimating”, so I assume you were addressing me, too?
I mean, all you’d have to do is make a smoothie.
mhhmmm watermelon rind smoothie. My next favourite thing after Fall leaves lasagna.
I prefer fall leaf sausage.
https://youtu.be/bJ2S5wvM4aA?is
I personally enjoy watermelon rinds.
My compost pile will appreciate those things more than my colon will.
Nah, your compost pile doesn’t give a shit, and because modern diets have so little fibre, your colon has trouble giving a shit, too.
https://smv.org/learn/blog/are-there-health-benefits-hunter-gatherer-diet/
I doing know why people don’t like pineapple core; it’s like a crunchier, milder pineapple. And pumpkin seeds are eaten quite commonly as a snack throughout the world.
Yeah, the birds and deer out back can eat that shit.
I’m not sure I could do watermelon rind, but I legitimately like pineapple core, and I know some people who roast the squash seeds and absolutely love em, like big sunflower seeds.
deleted by creator
How will garlic scraps fuck up your stock? Too bitter?
It was just this year that I found out I was peeling carrots for no reason.
I am all about the watermelon rind, that is tasty. Not the skin though.
TBF peeling is a big waste of food
Stalks be nasty tho