Methods for peeling pumpkin seeds

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The benefits of pumpkin are common knowledge. Many people like to use its pulp for cooking various dishes. But not everyone knows that the vegetable contains another useful element. If you peel pumpkin seeds and consume them in the right form, you can enrich your body with many vitamins.

Methods for peeling pumpkin seeds

Selection of seeds

Much depends on the quality of the product. Better to plant a pumpkin and grow it yourself, without the use of chemical fertilizers. The seeds collected from such a culture will be the richest in such useful microelements as vitamin E, group B vitamins, as well as A, C, D, zinc and potassium.

When choosing seeds, pay attention to several important points:

• they should be well cleaned of pulp and mucus residues. To check this, just moisten your fingers with water and take one of them in your hands - it should not slip out. If this happens, but the seller insists on the quality of the goods - do not believe them, they do not last well, because this slippery film does not allow air to pass through, and they rot over time;
• for cleaning, they must be well dried and with a hard shell;
• another way to check: pick up a handful of seeds and smell them: if they are already stuck, they will have a specific smell and cause unpleasant taste sensations when consumed.

Seed preparation

By following these tips, you can easily dry your seeds at home quickly and correctly:

• take a pumpkin, it must be clean;
• cut the fruit in half, for convenience, take a knife with a large blade;
• remove the seeds and place them in a colander;
• rinse thoroughly under running water and clean them of pulp and residual mucus;
• let the moisture drain or dry them on a towel;
• Transfer the seeds to a baking sheet or other flat, dry surface and leave to dry in a well-ventilated area near a heat source (such as a radiator).

Important: in order to preserve all the beneficial properties, the seed should not be heat treated. If you dry them in the oven, set the temperature to a minimum and leave the door open.

Cleaning

It is better to clean the seeds when they are dried.

When the seeds are dry, you can start cleaning them. Depending on the required amount of the product, there are 2 ways to do this at home.

Removing the husk from one seed

This method can be used if you only need one handful to prepare a dish. In this case, you need to take the following steps:

• we take scissors and, holding the seed by the thickened edge, carefully cut off the joints of the sidewalls towards the spout;
• turn the seed over with the cut part down and remove the nucleolus;
• we repeat the manipulation with the required amount of the product.

Cleaning large quantities

When a lot of seeds need to be cleaned, the following method is effective:

• put dry seeds on the table (it is better to take a large size);
• gently press on the grains with a rolling pin so that the husk cracks or even opens up, and the nucleoli are not damaged;
• we place the seeds in a saucepan and fill it with water with the calculation - for 1 glass of the product 2 glasses of liquid;
• boil for 20-30 minutes (depending on how quickly the peel leaves the grain);
• after we remove the emerging husk;
• at the bottom there are clean kernels. We place them in a colander and cool them under running water;
• we repeat the drying procedure, but without the peel.

Pumpkin seeds in the diet

Pumpkin kernels are not a permanent staple in our diet. Most will prefer sunflower seeds or simply do without them. In fact, they are very useful, especially for the female body, because contain healthy fats. The condition of our hair, skin and nails depends on them.

Having decided to use seeds for therapeutic and prophylactic purposes on your own or as prescribed by a doctor, remember that the daily rate is 10 g, provided there are no problems with the digestive system. Raw kernels are best suited for this purpose. You can enhance the benefits and add pleasant taste by mixing them with honey.

You can add seeds to baked goods, vegetable salads, sauces. This way you will not only add new flavors to your daily meals, but also make your diet more nutritious.

Regular use of this product increases the level of the body's immune defense, improves the quality of tissues, replenishes the deficiency of useful vitamins, which has a general strengthening effect and even has a strong antimicrobial effect.