So should we all ‘milk’ our cucumbers?

If you were on TikTok in the year 2024 AD, you would know way too much about Logan’s cucumbers.

The creator’s cucumber salads have gone viral several times, with one recipe for salmon cream cheese having been viewed more than 30 million times, while another recipe featuring Greek yogurt and pickles is on the verge of 20 million.

But if, like Logan, you’re planning on eating a whole cucumber, Dr. Karan Rajan (known for sharing his medical knowledge on TikTok) has some thoughts on whether you should “milk” it first.

The doctor shared a video of another TikTok creator rubbing the exposed insides of two cucumber halves together, creating a white foam.

“Once this bitter foam comes out, your cucumber will become less bitter,” said the person whose video Dr. Rajan was commenting on.

And while that person claims that “it works,” Dr. Rajan explained that there may be better ways to prepare the vegetables.

Although cucumbers are more than 95 percent water, the doctor explains, they also contain “a handful of nutrients and plant chemicals, and one of those happens to be a bitter chemical called cucurbitacin.”

Every gourd, from pumpkin to zucchini, contains this chemical. They serve as a defense mechanism to prevent animals from eating the vegetable.

However, cucurbitacin is good for us because the compounds have an “anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effect,” says the doctor; it is mainly found in the peel and tips of cucumbers.

Therefore, ‘milking’ cucumbers won’t do much, he argues, because it’s not the flesh that retains most of the bitter flavor.

Dr. Rajan says that peeling the cucumbers or choosing seedless and European cucumbers will likely produce a less bitter result.

However, if you leave out the peel, you lose a lot of the vegetable’s nutritional value.

Another approach is the classic exposure therapy. “The more vegetables and bitter substances you eat, the more your taste buds actually adapt and I dare say they start to enjoy eating vegetables,” the doctor emphasizes.

Coincidentally, if you’re looking for recipes that use a lot of green ingredients, I know someone…