Try not to eat the shells of a sunflower seeds

It took me longer than I'll even admit, to figure out the best way to eat sunflower seeds.

I never ate the whole seed, the shell and the seed, I’m not that ignorant about it. But, I would crack them open, haphazardly eat the inside piece and occasionally not think about the small pieces of shell that I swallowed. To me, it didn’t matter, a sunflower seed is a sunflower seed, how much damage can a few shell pieces do? As it turns out, a lot.

Those shells are not designed to be ingested and although they are fibrous and sharp, they are essentially like small wooden shards, and your stomach cannot process them. The result is either they sit in your stomach because of lack of breakdown or they move through your guts and cause you pain or perhaps blockages. Someone told me that in some unfortunate cases, they can puncture an intestine. I am not sure how prevalent that is, but the fear prevented me from continuing my reckless way of eating.

A cousin of mine had a friend who went to the hospital due to severe stomach pain. Originally, the doctors thought he had appendicitis. After some tests, they discovered that he regularly ate a lot of sunflower seed shells, he assumed it was healthy, that it provided him with a lot of fiber. The doctors were not thrilled about his eating habits.

I now eat sunflower seeds with more care. When I take one, I will break open the shell and eat the seed, and I'll throw the shell away afterwards. It may feel like extra work, but I think that is exactly the point, eating sunflower seeds shouldn’t be done rushing.

Another problem is you can chip your teeth eating sunflower seed shells so I wouldn’t recommend it, a chipped teeth is going to be very uncomfortable. Anyway, if you are eating sunflower seeds, make sure you’re being proactive about how you eat them.

_{Posted using SteemX}