Every Sunday morning I make home fries. A recent overnight guest freaked when she saw that I do not peel my potatos. She said that the skin has absorbed harmful chemicals and such.
Now, I soak them in a pan of water. I then chop them on a plate, and soak them again and then rinse them. So I think I have washed off everything bad.
So of course, there is a factual answer to this thread and that is: Am I really in danger of ingesting pestisides because I don’t peel my potatos?
Peeled. It lets you see evidence of a potato worm and if need be cut the little bugger out. What you don’t want to do is throw a worm-infested potato in the microwave. P-U!
Unpeeled, but well scrubbed with eyes and anything ‘not right’ removed. (Scars on the potato, areas where the skin doesn’t look intact, etc.)
I would think that if the skin has managed to absorb enough chemicals and whatnot that they won’t wash away then the potato has been exposed enough for the interior to be full of chemicals as well.
<< Murphy never sleeps, but that’s no reason to poke him with a sharp stick. >>
I don’t make fries at all, ever, but I do make oven-baked wedges a lot and these will always have the skin left on. I remove the skins for mashed or roast potatoes - for everything else, it stays on if it is in good condition.
I just don’t get this obsessive washing of fruit and vegetables; most of what I buy is organic now anyway (although that is only incidental to my reason for buying it), but I hardly ever wash anything - only if there’s actual dirt, insects or dust on it.
Someone brought some strawberries into the office a while back and they cut them into quarters, then washed them - they were simply inedible, wet mushy blobs of nothing after this treatment, but she was absolutely flabberghasted that I’d eat fruit - even berries I picked in the wild - without washing it first.
Any pesticide residue serious enough to be worrying about is not going to be removed by brief rinsing and in the case of potatoes, if they’re being grown in such a way as to accumulate harmful chemicals on the skin, that’s a reason for not buying them at all, not a reason for peeling them. (Because they grow underground - for toxic chemicals to filter down through the soil and reach dangerous levels in the tubers, we’re talking about off-puttingly large concentrations of poisons.
I don’t like potato peel Not on my fries, not in my mashed potatos, NOWHERE except in the trash can or compost pile. I don’t like carrot peels, either.
Unpeeled french fries are a vile abomination to society, a pox upon the civilized junk-food gourmand. And anyway, restaraunt suppliers in the US only did it to save the cost of peeling the damn things.
If you ordered a steak and it came “unpeeled”, would you still eat it?..
~
Your source, the Washington State Potato Commission (dead link), is/was simply wrong on that point. During World War II the German government produced public-service announcements for housewives to cook and serve potatoes whole, as there is a layer of high-quality protein just under the skin. This was crucial to a civilian population suffering from food shortages, especially meat and fat. That protein is not found in the core of the spud. Moreover, the skin is a source of dietary fiber, which is not present in the core. Discarding the skin and protein layer is foolish.
The fact that the link is dead may indicate that they eventually recognized the information on that page was faulty.
