We find them in many summer recipes, we love their flavor and we also appreciate the beneficial properties that peppers bring to the body: for example, eating peppers helps reduce cholesterol levels, support the liver, helps against constipation, is a natural diuretic and an excellent antioxidant useful for fighting the aging of our body.
But unfortunately many people do not digest pepper. Let's get to know why peppers are not very digestible and how we can eat them without too many complications.
Peppers, follow the seasonality
The pepper is one summer vegetable and therefore following nature it is good to eat it only in the hot season. This is because the pepper belongs to the solanaceae family like the tomato, the potatoes and the aubergines, all plants that produce their fruits in summer.
This family of vegetables contains a substance called solanine which is toxic in high doses. Green peppers contain a lot of solanine while those that reach the red or yellow color of ripeness contain much less.
This substance is therefore more present in unripe peppers and also in those we buy out of season because they are grown in greenhouses and therefore with less sun. Just the sun and the summer weather it allows during ripening a drop in the levels of solanine in the fruit.
Many people find they have intolerances to solanaceae and in particular to tomatoes and potatoes because they are very consumed and throughout the year even out of season. Returning to peppers, the choice of the red and yellow color and the right point of ripeness therefore allows a better digestibility of the pepper itself.
Read also Digestion in summer, 3 rules to favor it >>
How to properly clean peppers
Peppers contain in the central part of the filaments, seeds and other parts of white color. These parts must all be eliminated because they are not digestible by our intestine. With a knife it will then be necessary to cut the pepper in half and remove these white parts that are located along the central lines of the inside of the pepper.
How to cut peppers
It will look amazing but also the way we cut peppers seems to affect their digestibility. In fact, the horizontal cut with a thickness of a few centimeters is the best way to prepare the pepper.
In fact, it seems that this orientation of the cut helps to break the fiber of the pepper pulp and therefore the internal molecules are already more easily digested by our body because the bonds are already broken. Also use a blender to prepare the pepper in creams and sauces it is another way to break up the tissue of the pepper and make it digestible.
Peppers, better remove the peel
The skin of the pepper is also another hardly digestible part because it is mainly made of fiber and our body cannot process and digest it.
Animals have special enzymes to be able to transform and use the fiber of plants. Man, on the other hand, cannot do it and these fibers are useful in the intestine to clean the tract and make intestinal motility work better.
However, the fiber of the peel of the pepper is cellulose and especially that of the unripe pepper is really heavy for digestion.
It is usually possible to remove it peeling the pepper or even more simply we can cook over high heat on a plate or on the grill so that the peel is separated from the pulp. Many recipes in fact see the cooking of the pepper in order to remove the peel.
Pepper and other foods
Even the combinations with the other ingredients influence the digestibility of the pepper: if we combine it in the same dish meat and peppers or cheese and peppers our digestion could take hours before you can process these foods.
Good food combinations with peppers can be other types of vegetables or with a modest portion of legumes. Even with whole grains it is recommended to associate the pepper even if in any case eaten alone it is always easier to digest.
Fried pepper is also "indigestible" both because of what has been said about peppers, and because of the oil used which is transformed into poorly digestible substances. Better to prepare it in the oven or in a pan but the best choice remains to cut it horizontally and eat it raw with salt and oil.
It also seems that add a little lemon juice to salads where there are sliced ​​peppers to make everything more digestible.
Some even recommend cook the peppers not apple wedges since the latter brings sugar into the recipe and this facilitates the digestion of the pepper.
Read also How to digest fiber, here are some suggestions >>
Photo: Ornella Bonomini / 123rf.com
