Is there anything wrong with eating a lot of chestnuts?

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Permalink Reply by Josh Fossgreen on December 30, 2010 at 8:53am

Can you eat raw chestnuts?

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Permalink Reply by Simon on December 30, 2010 at 9:01am

Most Certainly!!!

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Permalink Reply by Josh Fossgreen on December 30, 2010 at 5:49pm

Is there a certain type you have to eat, or are most commercial varieties edible? I tried one once, but it was off a tree and may not have ripe, or could have been some weird non-edible variety. Hm.

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Permalink Reply by Eva on December 30, 2010 at 7:31pm

No, you're not meant to eat them raw...

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Permalink Reply by Sebastian (venerable tree) on December 30, 2010 at 9:17am

i heard that herbert shelton said they were his favorite because they are low in fat, I think that they are starchy, you should peel the skin cause its astringent, let me know how ya feel, occasional is simply that

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Permalink Reply by Simon on December 30, 2010 at 10:32am

I have eaten a few, I just didn't know if  I should have or not. The skin is awful, you are right, it is worse than cashew skin.

 

They felt rather heavy, this is why I decided to ask this question. =)

 

Should they feel heavy?

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Permalink Reply by DURIANRIDER on December 30, 2010 at 9:51am

I eat em. Havent had em for 2 years though.

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Permalink Reply by Arnaud Jaffres on December 1, 2012 at 11:42pm

Harley, do you it them raw or cooked?

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Permalink Reply by Peter Csere on December 2, 2012 at 3:30am

There is no point in asking "can you eat them raw." Or "Is it OK/Bad/Good/Wrong/JudgementWord to eat them once in a while or a lot or often or never or sometimes or vague undefined frequency." 

You'll notice one person answered "Most Certainly." and one person answered "No." They were both answering different questions without realizing it - the answer to that question is "Yes" because you can eat virtually anything raw, provided you can fit it into your mouth. But that's not what they meant ;-) 

You can eat anything raw! You can eat raw meat or raw bricks or raw crackao, or raw grass or raw plastic. You can say "You know what I mean," but I only know what you asked, and that question is not going to yield enough information to make an informed decision. "Is there anything wrong with occasionally eating a lot of raw potatoes in one sitting?" IDK. How do we even begin to answer that? 

Instead of asking for evaluations/judgements which will not help us, let's make some observations about chestnuts:

-Chestnuts are surprisingly low in fat and high in carbohydrate, for a nut. So the caloric ratio appears not to be an issue. 

-However, this carbohydrate, when raw, is mostly complex carbohydrate. The "80" in 80/10/10 HCRV refers to simple carbohydrate for a reason: 

-Complex carbohydrate is not as sweet as simple carbohydrate. It is also not digestible for humans, who only have barely enough starch-digesting enzymes to handle the pith on oranges or slightly unripe bananas. 

-Many nuts contain high levels of certain toxins, and in their raw state would contain the most. 

Sounds like the issue here is consistency, since that information indicates chestnuts have characteristics which are unfriendly to humans. So then we are led back to a pointless question... "Is it "OK" to eat chestnuts once in a while? Once a day? Once a week? Once a month? One chestnut once a month? 15 chestnuts once a month? 250 chestnuts once a year?" etc. etc. etc. 

So you are asking a very complicated philosophical question regarding principled application of consistency regarding food substances that have certain characteristics. Or you are just asking for a moralistic judgement "OK? Wrong? Bad? Good" that only you can make. Since you probably do not want people making your decisions for you, you may have a desire for information about chestnuts that can help you make the decision regarding consistency - but you did not ask for information specifically, you asked for a judgement. I bet you didn't realize you were asking "Hey folks, I want to make a decision - can you make it for me?" 

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