Can Eating Dragon Fruit Skin Make You Sick?

There's no doubt the beautiful, bright pink color of the dragon fruit skin is stunning. This may be why you picked up this fruit in the first place. The interior flesh of the Hylocereus cactus is a sweet-tasting white or red pulp freckled with black seeds that's texture is reminiscent of a pear or kiwi. Carved out of the peel, it's possible to eat this flesh as is. McCormick also offers other suggestions, such as blending it into a smoothie with coconut milk, making a dragon fruit bowl with cilantro and lime, or turning it into ice cream.

If you're like many people, you simply toss out the skin of the dragon fruit, believing it lacks flavor or perhaps even thinking it can make you sick. The spikey exterior may not look appetizing. Not only is the exterior of the fruit very safe to eat, but it's also as nutritionally dense as the fleshy part of itself, and throwing it out may be a big mistake.

The dragon fruit skin or peel is very safe to eat as long as you wash it before consuming it. The exterior may have a significant amount of pesticide residue on it otherwise, noted Kitchen Sanity. It's also packed with nutrition, including pectin, antioxidants, fiber, and betacyanin. It contains anthocyanin, which may provide some support in weight loss and preventing heart disease, notes Seeds Del Mundo. The fiber within it can also help with reducing blood sugar and cholesterol. Traditional Chinese medicine has often included the use of this peel for these reasons.

Remove the flesh from the peel in the same way you would an avocado or mango by slicing horizontally and vertically through a center-cut half. It should then peel away (per MasterClass). You can dice up the skin and eat it as is or toss it into a smoothie. If you want to try something a bit more adventurous, use it to replace your chips by washing, drying, and then deep frying them in light oil. It makes for the perfect salsa chip like this, a common method in Indonesian cooking. Purchasing dragon fruit on a consistent basis allows you to try numerous recipes like these.