Kumquats - also known as cumquats - are cute little cherry-tomato-sized citrus fruit. They taste sort of like a tangerine. Here's the secret to eating these delightful little items!

The first thing to do is wash off the outside of the kumquats. It's always a good idea to rinse anything you eat, to make sure you get it nice and clean.

The rind on the kumquat is edible. It's thin and flavorful. So yes, you are going to eat the rind. However, the seeds of the kumquat are not tasty to bite open. Also, the juice is very tart if you get a lot all at once. So what you're aiming to do here is enjoy the flavor of the rind and pulp, only get the juice in small doses, and avoid biting the seeds. It's sort of like eating chewing gum with small seeds to avoid.

So put the entire kumquat into your mouth and start slowly chewing. You'll notice the rind has a pleasant tangeriney flavor to it. Once you make a crack in the rind the juices will start coming out. You want to have them come out slowly, so that they stay in balance with the skin and pulp flavors. If for example you instead just bit the entire thing in half and your mouth was flooded with the juice all at once, you'd find it fairly tart.

There are only one or two seeds in a kumquat, and really it's not awful if you bite into them - but it's better to avoid it. So as you find them in your mouth either swallow them or spit them out.

When you're done enjoying the kumquat, swallow it and move on to the next one!

A single kumquat has 2g of net carbs plus 1g of fiber - there's a lot of great fiber in that skin and pulp! It also gives you 14% of your vitamin C - just in one kumquat! We all know what a powerhouse of an antioxidant Vitamin C is, and we know that eating vitamins naturally is much better than trying to find them in pill form. Nature does a better job of providing the complete package. There's no fat at all, no cholesterol at all, and only 13 calories.

If you see kumquats in your local store, give them a try! They're a tasty treat with no peels or other waste to dispose of. The perfect eco-friendly fruit!


Lisa Shea's Library of Low Carb Books