Pumpkin Seeds

A pumpkin seed, also known in North America as a pepita (from the Mexican Spanish: pepita de calabaza, "little seed of squash"), is the edible seed of a pumpkin or certain other cultivars of squash. The seeds are typically flat and asymmetrically oval, have a white outer husk, and are light green in color after the husk is removed. Some cultivars are huskless, and are grown only for their edible seed.^[1] The seeds are nutrient- and calorie-rich, with especially high content of fat (particularly linoleic acid and oleic acid), protein, dietary fiber, and numerous micronutrients. Pumpkin seed can refer either to the hulled kernel or unhulled whole seed, and most commonly refers to the roasted end product used as a snack.

Pumpkin seeds are a common ingredient in Mexican cuisine and are also roasted and served as a snack.^[2] Marinated and roasted, they are an autumn seasonal snack in the United States, as well as a commercially produced and distributed packaged snack, like sunflower seeds, available year-round. Pepitas are known by their Spanish name (usually shortened), and typically salted and sometimes spiced after roasting (and today also available as a packaged product), in Mexico and other Latin American countries, in the American Southwest, and in specialty and Mexican food stores.