I love grapes with seeds, they don't seem to affect my blood sugar nearly as much as the seedless varieties.

Someone once told me I should swallow the seeds. I haven't been, so was wondering what everyone thought.

I swallow all kinds of seeds out of laziness, but your system won't generally be able to digest them if you swallow them whole. The plants produce the seeded grapes with the design that some animal will come eat them and then drop the seeds someplace else in a pile of its own fertilizer. If you want to take advantage of any of the nutrients in seeds you can either break them with your teeth or with some other implement (like a blender). I usually swallow them whole without bothering.

I had concord grapes today.

I usually eat the seedless ones just out of economy, but I have no sugar issues.

the concord ones I find slip right out of the skin, so I kinda of just let them 'dissolve' in my mouth and end up spitting out a big chunk of skins and seeds.

personally I'm not a big fan of eating any skins or seeds of fruits, chewing seeds is generally not such a great idea and (taste like crap IMO) and swallowing them must rob some digestive energies..although I'm sure it is quite natural (at least for some creature to swallow - if not humans...

I prefer NICE and EASY, hence not eating skins either except on things like apples/pears etc..that don't easily slip and that I don't eat in any quantitiy that it would be an issue.

I will swallow seeds, but I won't chew them. I don't like the taste. With concords, I don't eat the seeds or skins, and typically I will spit out the seeds because they don't taste good to me.

With watermelon, I swallow but don't chew the seeds unless the seeds are really big, in which case I won't even swallow those.

I guess I will continue with the way I am doing then, thanks. The skin slips off in my mouth, I chew on the inner part and spit out the seeds, and then I chew on the skins and inner part together - yummy. Maybe the slight tartness of the skin along with the sweet inners is what helps not affect my bs as much.

I know Dr. Mercola thinks the skin is the most important part for antioxidants, including resveratol (sp?) and suggests just eating the skin by itself. But that doesn't taste too yummy and seems like such a waste of the sweet inner part.

I always eat the fruits with their seeds (and all kind of other seeds - almonds, hemp, flax, pumpkin, et caetera).

Knowing that my system does not want to digest them (even I try to chew them - lots of extractions), (in my opinion) it does not make much sense to swallow them and just to let them go thru my body - since I don't fertilize no one's crops :-) if I can't take advantage of their nutrients and phytochemicals.
I always blend any fruits having hard or impossible to digest seeds and skin, because I want to take advantage of ALL their content.

Tell me what you want, but I think this way: why to ingest something I cannot digest and why to waist some nutrients from skins and seeds (not blending them). Compared with the fruits (very high content of water), the seeds are so concentrated with all kind of nutrients (I would say with a kind of dorment life and energy) why to not take advantage of ALL their potential/content?
I paid for, I'm going to eat them all.

... and about the taste:

do you think that only the "good tasting" foods are good for you and the ones with unpleasant taste are not good or have no value?

I am sure that there are plenty of good tasting foods which are NOT good for us and viceversa, lots of (natural) foods tasting bad but having benefic effects and lots of benefits.

I eat everything is raw, good or bad tasting, sweet, bitter, sour, spicy. I only eat a smaller amount if the taste/smell is very strong - my stomach will "tell me" the right amount.

VARIETY is one of the keys of having a good health (just my insignificant opinion).

Pls. excuse my English - foreigner.

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Medicine, Food Industry and Commerce are businesses.
Is their goal to make/keep me healthy or to make more profit?
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I googled on: grape seeds edible chew and found a couple of articles that said you should chew the grape seeds. So I am going to try that and see how it goes. Thanks everyone.

I agree with Erik about eating seeds.

Wallace

Ever look at how much people pay for much-touted "grapeseed extract" with its massive anti-oxidant properties? I won't waste words on the benefits of whole-food sources over supplements, but why not eat the (chewed) seeds if there are such beneficial elements contained in them?

While the unchewed seeds themselves will pass through your system, some PORTIONS of the CHEWED ones are likely to be absorbed. Those absorbed portions will include important nutritional factors like the "grapeseed extract" antioxidants.

Along with this, the seeds provide insoluble and indigestible roughage/fiber, which is important for the health of the digestive tract. It gives something for the peristaltic action of the tract walls to push against, speeding the time of food's passage through the tract, and provides a "sweeping" cleaning action to help with detoxification. Such fiber also feeds certain bacteria in the gut while killing other bacteria, helping to maintain a healthful gut flora. Those seeds act a bit like taking an antibiotic plus a probiotic, in one mild, natural package that lacks the side-effects of pharmaceuticals.

In nature, animals eat the fruits, including the seeds, which survive their passage through the digestive tract to be planted elsewhere, right in the middle of a nice mound of ready fertilizer! One reason the seeds don't taste good is that chewed seeds won't sprout, whereas unchewed ones will! The fruit around them ONLY EXISTS to attract animals to eat and transport the seeds! Otherwise Nature wouldn't expend so much energy creating such elaborately tempting packaging for the seeds. It is natural to eat them. It is probably not so natural to chew them, but with grapes I find the seeds quite OK to chew, despite their somewhat bitter and mildlly acidic taste.

For all these reasons, I buy seeded grapes and eat them with the seeds, which I usually chew. It seems the natural thing to do, although swallowing them without chewing might be MORE natural.

I chew em right up!

I chew fruit with seed that can be chewed,and swallow the juice, then spit out the pulp, but once in a while I swallow the whole thing after chewing it for the fiber it gives,because nature is the best fuit, and fiber (broom) provider.

I eat the seeds from grapes and watermelon.... I never buy the seedless variety; not natural and not near as tasty.

I always swallow the grape seeds, but it has been over a year since I've eaten grapes, because usually only the depleted seedless hybrids are available aside from the vines themselves.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2007 10:03PM by dream earth.