{"id":828143,"date":"2026-08-28T01:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T01:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/828143\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T01:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T01:14:09","slug":"stop-tossing-watermelon-rind-its-good-to-eat-instead-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/828143\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop tossing watermelon rind. It\u2019s good to eat instead \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Instead of throwing away watermelon rind, you can eat it.Watermelon rind now has a standardized nutrition profile in FoodData Central.Rind is good for digestion, blood pressure and blood flow and provides potassium and fiber.<\/p>\n

This food item is good for digestion, lowers blood pressure, improves blood flow, and provides both potassium and fiber. It\u2019s also quite likely that you\u2019ve been throwing it away all summer.<\/p>\n

The appreciation meter is ticking up for watermelon rind, which now has an official nutrition profile in USDA FoodData Central<\/a>, providing everyone from nutritionists, researchers and cooks with standardized nutrition data that could divert it from landfills and compost piles into recipes and stomachs.<\/p>\n

According to the profile on the U.S. Department of Agriculture page<\/a>, the raw rind of a seedless watermelon is nearly 95% water, but 100 grams packs 19 kcals of energy, 1.5 grams of dietary fiber, 272 milligrams of potassium, 21 milligrams of phosphorus and 7 milligrams of vitamin C, among other things.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all pretty inscrutable. What\u2019s easier to read is how versatile the rind is. According to a study <\/a>in the journal Agricultural and Food Chemistry, watermelon rind is a good source of citrulline, a nonessential amino acid that helps keep muscles and blood vessels healthy. The study says citrulline \u201chas also been shown to reduce the recovery heart rate and muscle soreness after 24 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Verywell Health<\/a>, citrulline is a \u201cpowerful precursor to nitric oxide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verywell Health calls the rind \u201cmore nutritious than the flesh,\u201d adding kudos to the rind for providing \u201cmeaningful amounts\u201d of vitamin B6 and magnesium, among other things. <\/p>\n

And talk about insoluble dietary fiber. The rind has lots of fiber, helping the digestion system keep things moving, helping control sugar spikes and providing a sense of satiety.<\/p>\n

Easy ways to eat watermelon rind\"\"Aurora Tucker, 5, from Grand Junction, Colorado, laughs with a watermelon stained face while eating watermelon during the 118th annual Melon Days Festival in Green River on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. Tucker has been attending the Melon Days festival to enjoy watermelon for her entire life so far. | Brice Tucker, Deseret News <\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a caveat. Verywell Health notes that you\u2019d have to eat between 1 and 1.5 cups of rind to get meaningful amounts of the vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. <\/p>\n

But accessing the good stuff in the rind isn\u2019t really that hard. All of it is edible, though some people peel off the green to eat the white between it and the pink inner part. That\u2019s more a matter of taste than anything actually wrong with eating the green.<\/p>\n

Verywell Health describes the green as bitter, the white more akin to cucumber. And rind can be pickled or added to stir fry, chutneys, salads and smoothies, per the article, which notes that \u201csome food scientists are exploring ways to add watermelon rinds to food products, such as mixing powdered rinds with wheat flour for baked goods to boost fiber content.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vitacost\u2019s Upside blog<\/a> lists seven ways to use watermelon rinds. You can use it to make:<\/p>\n

A smoothiePickled watermelon rindFermented watermelon rindWatermelon rind candyWatermelon rind curryWatermelon rind preservesWatermelon rind gazpachoWash produce before eating<\/p>\n

In a season that\u2019s been filled with produce problems including cyclosporiasis and E. coli, most people know they need to wash their fruits and vegetables or cook them. But watermelon actually grows on the ground, so cleaning it before you cut it helps remove dirt, bacteria and also pesticides or other things that have been sprayed outdoors. <\/p>\n

Even if you don\u2019t intend to eat the green thin outer skin of the rind, it\u2019s important to wash a melon under running water before cutting into it, as the knife could become contaminated and actually deliver contaminants to the pink part.<\/p>\n

Also, watermelon rind is perishable. If you don\u2019t use it right away, it can be stored, per Vitacost, for about five days. It can also be cut into pieces and frozen to use later in smoothies, soups and other blended recipes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Instead of throwing away watermelon rind, you can eat it.Watermelon rind now has a standardized nutrition profile in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":828144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[97,8793,269],"class_list":["post-828143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-health","tag-news-feed-national","tag-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=828143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}