It’s pumpkin time and if you’re pumpkin carving with the little ones, make sure you eat some of it as well as making a Jack O’Lantern – it’s scarily good for you.
Pumpkin contains potassium (more than a banana!), beta-carotene (which makes it orange and which your body turns into vitamin A), vitamins C and E and zinc, calcium and magnesium. All that goodness makes it good for you too –
Your skin
Your eyes
Your immune system
Healing
Pumpkin is also low-calorie, high in water content (90% – and you know how much I love water), fibrous (so suppresses your appetite) and anti-oxidant, thanks to its carotenoid.
Plus NOT using it is a real waste: more than eight million pumpkins – 18,000 tonnes of edible flesh – will get thrown out this Halloween, according to research by the stock cube brand Knorr and the environmental charity Hubbub.
Pumpkin patches in Surrey to pick-your-own
If you’re looking for a PYO pumpkin patch in or around Surrey, here are a few you can try:
AddlestonePriory Farm,
Redhill Garsons,
Esher Secretts,
Milford Osterley Park,
Isleworth TW7
Healthy pumpkin recipes
Now, what to do with the bits you’re scraping out?
The whole pumpkin is edible – skin, pulp and seeds; just remove the stringy bits holding the seeds in place. Three heaped tablespoons or 80g is equivalent to one of your five fruit and veg a day.
Eat the seeds: Scoop out, rinse and toast them with olive oilBlitz seeds and oil to make pumpkin butter
Make pumpkin hummus
Blitz into pumpkin puree – add to yoghurt, granola or smoothies or freeze for later
Pumpkin face mask
Or, if you’re not keen on the taste, turn pumpkin into a face mask. Add equal quantities of apple cider vinegar to pumpkin puree for oily skin or a dash of honey two teaspoons of pumpkin puree (with ground oatmeal, if you like) to moisturise dry skin.
Give your pumpkin to the birds
After Hallowe’en, compost your pumpkin or fill it back up with seeds and put it out in the garden for birds and animals to share.