how to peel a pomegranate efficiently?

Even easier than Michael's way:

Quarter the pomegranate. Hold it over a bowl of water, seeds down, and spank it repeatedly with the flat of a large knife. Done. (The water makes separation of pith and seeds easier; the latter sink and the former floats).

Why peel it? I cut or break the pomegranate in quarters, then just sort of bend a quarter backwards towards the peel side to start breaking out the arils, and then pick loosen them with my fingers. Works fine. Tedious but about as efficient as it gets. Some people like to do this under water in a bowl, but I haven't found it to give any great advantage.

Two steps:

1. Roll the pomegranate while pressing on it with your wrist. Rolling + pressing releases the arils.
2. Cut pomegranate in half, hold each half over a bowl, seeds down, and spank with a spoon or a cup.

I saw it here. It's in Hebrew, but you can look at the pictures and the video. Try it, it works!

Every pomegranate has six ridges running from top to bottom which define the natural segments of the fruit.

First slice off the top and bottom of the outer skin, then lightly score along the ridges.

This will allow you to gently pull the sections apart, exposing the tasty goodness inside without any mess at all.

This is by far the easiest and cleanest method I've tried, but you need to be gentle.

Learned this method after watching a video mentioned on Reddit:

1. Wash the fruit and the knife and the large bowl. Select a heavier table spoon will make it easier to extract the seeds.

2. Score fruit about 3mm deep from stem to blossom along the ridges.

3. Make a 3mm deep cut all the way around the circumference. Position the cut about 10mm above the widest part will make the next step very slightly easier than if the cut is directly on the circumference. Use the curvy part of the knife will make it easier to control the depth of the cut. If any juice flows out then you've cut too deep.

4. Insert the tip of the knife into the flat part of the fruit where you've made the thin slice to make a triangular cut that is 10mm deep and 15mm wide. The deepest part of the triangle cut should be located midpoint between two ridges of the fruit. If your knife's tip can create that cut just by simple insertion then that would be the best. The insertion is to cut the white fleshy part of the fruit. If any juice comes out then you've cut too deep or cut the wrong place.

I know this question already has a lot of answers, but for some reason everyone is overcomplicating it...I personally learned from this video, and it works every single time.

1. Cut it in half.
2. Hold it in a bowl of a water and break into quarters by hand.
3. Rub kernels with thumbs, and they'll separate from membrane easily.
4. The bitter membrane floats to the top of the water, so just drain the liquid with the membrane, and you're done.

No spanking, no peeling, and a single cut. It might help to squeeze it a bit under water, but that's it.

The only time that this method didn't work for me was when I had an unripe pomegranate and the membrane stuck stubbornly to the kernels.