How wise is eating an orange peel?

1. Orange peels are healthy. They are packed with vitamins and are hailed as being good for health because they are packed with vitamin C. Orange zest for the marmalade, candied orange with zest on the pie and homemade orange tea. The only question then is how healthy this orange peel is with all the insecticides it comes into contact with during production.

How contaminated is the orange?

1. In 2011 a study was carried out into the contamination score of fruit (1) by the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), which showed that the orange was the most polluted fruit in the study. Only 2 percent of the oranges examined were not contaminated, 85 percent remained within legal limits, 13 percent of the oranges were found to be in violation of the law, and 5 percent of the oranges even presented a health risk. You run the greatest risk with fruit from countries that do not belong to the EU. It is best to choose European oranges as much as possible.

Organic oranges

1. Organic oranges are more expensive, because the yield is slightly lower. They are also sprayed, but only with biological pesticides. Organic oranges must therefore also be washed well before you use the orange peel. According to EU guidelines, fifteen natural insecticides and antifungals are allowed on organically grown fruits and vegetables (3). It is therefore not the case that organic means that this fruit or vegetable is not sprayed. In addition, with an organic orange there is a slightly higher chance of insect eggs on the peel. So wash organic oranges well.

Healthy properties of orange peel

1. Orange peels contain a lot of vitamin C, probably even more than the orange itself, and contain flavonoids. Flavonoids provide the orange color and are well-known antioxidants. You can use orange peels perfectly when you want to make marmalade or an orange pie, only then unsprayed and washed. The healthy properties of the orange peel are not so great that this should be a reason to consume a lot of orange peels.

Eat orange peel

1. Candied orange You often find candied orange as a cake decoration. Sometimes only the skins are used and the other time the whole orange. Whether you use the whole orange or just the skins, in both cases cut them into very thin slices. When using only the skins, remove as much of the white as possible.

Other possibilities with orange peels

1. You can always throw it away. Orange peels are really useful. If you have white stains on your wooden furniture (often from glasses, so-called water stains), you can rub them off with the white inside of the orange peel.

2. You can always throw it away. Orange peels are really useful. If you have white spots on your wooden furniture (often from glass, so-called water spots), you can rub them off with the white inside of the orange peel.