My grandma refuses to eat the peels of any fruit or vegetable for fear of pesticides, is her fear unfounded?

Question

She'll peel everything from cherries to tomatoes, and refuses to let anyone eat the apple peels from the apple itself. She is so paranoid of the fact that the fruit and vegetable is so chock-full of pesticides and plant-feeders that she even refuses to let the end product go into a compost pile.

I'm curious to know, is there reason to why she feels like she has to discard every part of the "contaminated" piece of the fruit, or is there no reason to throw away peel and core alike?

Good points on all that brought knowledge to the table, thank you.

Though I feel I must say that the only reason I ask is to get the same understanding as her. I don't want to stop her from peeling the fruits or vegetables that she wants to, I just want to know if it's really true that pesticides and inorganic feed fillers make the produce part-way bad.

Thanks for the answers so far, please keep answering! I want more knowledge on this subject so I can make sure my produce is safe!

Answer 1

All pesticides used in the United States must go through extensive testing before being approved for use by the FDA. So they should be safe. I have never heard of a single food recall because of unsafe pesticides.

But if she feels that way, tell her to buy organic produce, which is readily available at many places. One of the requirements for organic farming is that it has to be grown without artificial pesticides.

Answer 2

Usually a good soapwashing and rinse takes care of all of those pesticides. And the most nutritional part of the apple is the peel (that is where the fiber is).

But it is definitely a good idea to either wash or peel all fruits and vegetables. Those pesticides have been linked to various cancers, sterility in males, and birth defects in pregnant or soon-to-be pregnant females.

Plus, aside from a very few fruits/vegetables, the peel tastes disgusting.

Answer 3

My wife is a food inspector for the government.
You don't even want to know what they are doing to your food man. More horror stories she comes home with every day.
Organic is really the safest as everyone else basically does nearly whatever they want... they spray the cr*p out of everything, they are also gassed, and you don't want to know about the imported foods... they come from countries that have little or no regulations at all. Yes, the outer part of the fruits will have the highest concentration of chemicals. But if she thinks that it's not on the inside too in lesser concentrations, she's mistaken. But, yes, I think she is greatly reducing the concentrations by discarding the outer parts.

Answer 4

While she goes a little overboard--a doctor suggested to me that the antioxidant benefit in many fruits outweighs the possible deleterious effects of the pesticides, there are things your grandma can do. The foods she is most concerned about she should buy organic and give a good scrub before eating. After all, the peel is the most nutritious part of the food. She's tossing fiber and antioxidants down the garbage chute.

For foods where you don't eat the skin--citrus and bananas, say--she can buy them conventional and just toss the rind. It will biodegrade anyway.

Answer 5

She could be slightly paranoid. The chemicals aren't great for you, probably. However, you'd need to eat a LOT of them to get sick... anyway, yeah. To answer your question: it's a bit strange to waste potentially good compost, to me. I figure that unless they've been contaminated (you got dairy on them, or meat, or some other non-compostable), there's no harm in composting. But it's her garden, and her compost, and she obviously does. Could be she's nuts.

But, think about it this way... if you are an avid gardener, and spend a lot of time in the garden (perhaps even growing your own food, or cutting your own flowers) would you put something that you considered poisonous on your garden? If what you compost is poison, and you feed it to your plants, then they could easily absorb it.

You know that meat can't be considered organic if it has been fed non-organic food. She probably has the same mindset (just is a bit more strict about it).

Introduce her to a local organic grocery store. Whole Foods and PCC are the big ones in my neck of the woods. If she likes the idea of doing local (she's awesome!) find a co-op. :-)

And not eating the peels won't hurt you, either.

Answer 6

Some produce growers spray there crops with pesticides to keep worms and flys from getting into their fruit and spoiling it before it harvested.

If your grandma is seriously worried try buying organic produce that has not been sprayed with pesticides, usually you have to go to a wholesaler for that instead of a supermarket.

Usually scrubbing the skins of the fruit before consuming gets rid of most of the pesticide traces that may be left.

Mostly the pesticide is on the outside of the fruit and does not seep into the fruits.

Answer 7

No, she's paranoid for the wrong reason. She should just buy organic food. The peel is the healthiest part of the fruit and veggie! If the pesticides are sprayed, they go everywhere, dont just on the outside! She may as well stop eating them and die, then.

Answer 8

When shopping for fruit, one way to tell if it's organic is looking at the little stickers that are on the fruit.
The numbers tell you how the fruit was grown. Conventionally grown fruit has four digits; organically grown fruit has five and starts with a nine; genetically engineered has five numbers and starts with an eight.
I peel my apples, too, but never considered peeling tomatoes, cherries, grapes, etc... sounds like your granny might have an OCD. I think I might, too, but my laziness overpowers it.

Answer 9

Nothing wrong with that, the Chinese do these with most fruit because of this, plus the fact they wash the fruit with water from the tap that has to be boiled to kill the germs in it.

If the fruit has come into contract with these things it is most likely that they will be concentrated on the surface of the fruit due to physical contract.

If your grandmother thinks its the right way then let her do it raither than let her be stressed out. Theres nothing from stopping you eating the peels of fruit when your not around her.

Answer 10

Well not long ago people really were getting sick from pesticides from fruit and she probable heard it on the news so their for she is paranoid about this, They have taken precaution now to make sure that every thing is not contaminated these days.