Perhaps you just landed here after filling your tummy with watermelon seeds. Lol.
In actual truth, there is hardly no how one can successfully eat a seeded watermelon (yes, there are seedless hybrid watermelons mostly found in the US) without swallowing a seed or two.
You see, it is not just that watermelons grow too many seeds, the seeds are also located in a way that makes it hard to avoid swallowing them.
So how dangerous is it to swallow watermelons?
You will be surprised! Some of us living in Africa (or anywhere else actually) might have had mischievous parents or older siblings who told you that swallowing seeds of watermelon will cause them to sprout out of your stomach, turning you into a small mini vegetable garden.
Well, it’s all a LIE, to begin with! Swallowing watermelon seeds will not cause them to grow out from your tummy. In soil, watermelon seeds will find all the right conditions to germinate. In your highly acidic stomach, the last thing the seeds will be thinking about is germinating.
So here it is – it not dangerous at all to swallow watermelon seeds.
So what happens to you when you swallow watermelon seeds?
More like nothing. Swallowing watermelon seeds is completely safe. Unlike seeds of some other fruits like almonds, apples, apricots, peaches, plums, cherries, etc., the body does not metabolize watermelon seeds.
In fact, the seeds pass through your digestive tract and leave the same way they entered. Because of the hard case enclosing the seeds, the body does not digest the seeds or even remotely try to. So you will shit out the seeds the same way you have swallowed them.
To provide more relief, there are people who actually crush watermelon seeds for eating. Scientists and food experts have confirmed that the inner content of the seeds is safe for human consumption and is actually packed with a lot of beneficial nutrients such as zinc, magnesium, vitamin B, folate, niacin, etc.
So the next time you swallow watermelon seeds and someone tries to scare you with a crazy story about how the seeds are going to germinate inside you, let them know you are fine.
