Why do Russians eat potatoes without the skin?

[Michele A. Berdy]

> What I find surprising is that in a country which has known so much 
> hunger,
> a food product is being wasted.
>
Forgive me if I am being presumptuous -- always a danger in this kind of 
communication -- but I think this is a question of country-specific 
agriculture. Or region-specific. Or something. That is, in Russia of old, 
and especially in prisons, and sometimes even today, a potato peel can be a 
filthy, rotted, bruised, yucky, nitrite- and other fertilizer-laden, mostly 
inedible thing. It's also not filling the way a potato is. It's not the most 
nutritious, vitamin-filled part of the potato. It's more: eat at your own 
risk. (I learned this from my Russian husband in the 1980s, when I thought I 
knew a lot about vitamins. It was an excellent lesson in "when in Rome...")

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