alt Hacker News> Alex rightly points out that apple seeds do contain cyanide. Turns out, it’s not a huge risk for normal apple consumption.
You don't have to eat them. There's no benefit to eating them. They don't taste good. They provide a negligible amount of nutrition, if any, and harm you very mildly. The stem of an apple is edible, but for what? A gram of extra fiber after you manage to gnaw through it?
You can eat banana peels, but you probably wouldn't want to. It's a terrible texture and flavor. They decompose well, so there's no meaningful environmental benefit. Yes, they have nutrients. You can eat a second piece of fruit instead.
And this is not universally good advice. The seeds, leaves, and stem of the pawpaw is filled with toxins—enough that folks have died from it.
I don't think the author is trying to make a point, but rather to show that we do things because we were told them. But it's important to also realize that the cultural reasons are sometimes backed up with hard-earned lessons or to save us from having to learn for ourselves that watermelon rind isn't pleasant to eat without preparing it in other ways.
Replies
As a person who always eats the whole apple, stem and all (have done so for years), I'll object to your "apple seeds do not taste good" statement - tastes differ, to me they are delicious, certainly on par with other "normally edible" seeds like sunflower seeds! Of course I wouldn't eat them in any great quantity because of the poison issue.
Most of the insecticide sprays are on the skin. You can eat the seeds, maybe don't bite them as they taste nasty. Eating the core is not the most pleasant part, and the top and bottom might be be most difficult to rinse the sprays from.
Banana peels are delicious if cooked correctly. You can make a surprisingly tasty "facon" with them.
It definitely provokes some thinking of what we even mean with "edible". The author seems to use "you can eat it and it won't kill you or make you sick" as the definition.
That's alright, but then grass and pebbles are also edible.
I mean even monkeys just dispose of the banana skin
I mean it reminds me of this article where a university professor asked his students if you can put a toaster in the dishwasher. Everyone replied no, obviously not. But as the professor replied - why not? Your average toaster works perfectly fine after going through a dishwasher, once properly dried. The answers ranged from "you're not supposed to" to "it's electric"(sic).
Just because we think you shouldn't do something doesn't mean you really can't is the takeaway I guess. We don't normally eat apple cores but you could and you'd be perfectly fine.
[dead]
Doing things as we were told to is sometimes called "following tradition". Traditional knowledge can be based in superstition or valid information that's out of date, but it can also be based on things that remain relevant.
e.g. Bitter cassava is a staple crop in parts of South America and Africa. Unlike apple seeds, it contains substantial quantities of cyanide. It's a great crop because you can plant it and forget it. No need for fences. Animals won't eat it. A chemist would be hard-pressed to come up with a more effective method for removing cyanide from it than some of the traditional methods of cooking it. However, problems arise when people cook and consume it in non-traditional ways.
Traditional knowledge can be both constraining and protective. It's like a fence whose purpose you don't know. Tearing it down is a gamble. You might win. You might lose. It's probably not a bad idea to try to figure out why a tradition is there before you mess around.