I've had a bumper crop of Thai peppers this summer and the fruits don't exactly separate from the sepal/stem easily. They're small and tedious. In a dehydrator, I have dried some with the stems on them thinking I'd rather separate them when I use them instead of before I dried them. I also have some other small scale varieties that have done well. They also don't separate from the sepal/stem very easily. So I cut those off with scissors before I dried them. Bits and pieces of the sepals remain.

So my question is... Are the stems and sepals OK to eat, as if I grind these into a powder eventually?

Thank you.

Chris