Peeled Limes Freaked Out Twitter Over the Weekend

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Some fruits we always peel: With its peel still on, a banana is little more than a fake telephone. For other fruits, peeling is pointless: Peeling blueberries is a serious waste of time. But though most of us have strong inclinations about which fruits should and shouldn't be peeled, the reasons for these feelings might not be as clear-cut as you thought. You don't eat the rind of a grapefruit, but you don't always peel the fruit either. As it turns out, maybe there's a lot about fruit peeling we don't truly understand? Like have you ever peeled a lime?

On June 30, the Twitter user @Exploditorium posted a couple photos of peeled limes. Though the user later admitted that "I did not peel these" but instead they "are images I found off google," whoever did the peeling was a moot point.

The idea of a peeled lime was so foreign to so many people that the post has since racked up over 20,000 retweets and nearly 60,000 likes. Twitter even dedicated one of its "Twitter Moments" to the discussion, saying, "You won't be able to unsee a lime peeled like an orange the next time you're making a margarita."

So what is so intriguing about a peeled lime? Well, a few responses to the original tweet provide some interesting insight. One user admitted that she had simply never seen a peeled lime before, which, seeing as limes are rarely peeled, might explains many people's reaction. "I'm flabbergasted," the user wrote. It's not every day you see a common fruit in such a new light.

Another reason peeled limes evoke such a visceral response is that typically you peel a fruit when you plan on eating it, and yet, eating a lime as a snack is pretty uncommon. But that's not to say people don't do it. "I used to peel limes and lemons and eat them with sugar," another user responded. So maybe some people were put off by that idea.

But it's also possible that the most compelling part of the photos is that they unleash something deep inside us. It upends everything thought we knew and makes us want to explore the unknown. "This makes me WANT to peel a lime...." someone tweeted in response.

Yes, the doors of culinary perception have been opened. It's not, as Twitter Moments suggests, that you can't unsee these peeled limes; it's that now that you've seen them your eyes have been opened to so much more – as if you can see forever. Hell, maybe you'll even start peeling your blueberries? Who convinced you that was even a waste of time to begin with?

[h/t Food52]