When cooking, do you find that vegetable peels, seeds, and other "waste" are not only inedible but also a hassle to deal with? However, nutrition experts point out that many vegetable "scraps" considered "waste" are not only edible but also have excellent nutritional and health benefits.
【Silks】
Vegetables with silks are rare, with corn silk being the most familiar. For most young people, they throw away the "inedible" corn silk when eating corn, but in fact, they don't realize it's a treasure. Dr. Liu Jia from the Department of Clinical Nutrition at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University introduced that in traditional Chinese medicine, corn silk is also known as "dragon beard" and has good health benefits. "Corn silk is sweet and bland in nature, neutral in nature, and enters the liver, kidney, and bladder meridians. It has the effects of promoting urination to reduce edema, calming the liver and promoting bile flow, and clearing heat. It can be used in the daily diet of patients with acute and chronic nephritis, edema, acute cholecystitis, biliary stones, and hypertension." In fact, when boiling corn or making corn soup, adding the corn silk can make the soup have the effect of lowering blood lipids, blood pressure, and blood sugar. It is especially suitable for people with high blood lipids, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar to drink. Drinking it in summer also has the effect of removing dampness, promoting urination, and reducing swelling.
In the field of nutrition, corn silk is also very valuable. Liu Jia said that corn silk is rich in fatty oil, gum-like substances, saponins, alkaloids, phytosterols and other components, and has the effects of lowering blood pressure, diuresis, and lowering blood sugar. The "promoting bile flow" mentioned in traditional Chinese medicine is also reflected in nutrition, which can promote bile excretion, thereby reducing viscosity and decreasing bilirubin content.
Recipes:
Corn Silk and Coix Seed Porridge
Ingredients: 50g coix seed, 50g rice, 15g fresh corn silk, 15g cogon root. First, boil the cogon root and corn silk for 20 minutes, then remove the dregs, add coix seed and rice to cook into a porridge for consumption. It has the effects of clearing heat and removing dampness, promoting urination and reducing edema.
Dendrobium and Corn Silk Tea
Ingredients: 10g dendrobium, 15g reed rhizome, 20g corn silk. Boil in water and drink. It has the effects of nourishing yin, clearing heat, and promoting urination.
Corn Silk Boiled Eggs
Ingredients: 100g corn silk, 2 eggs. It has the effects of calming the liver and clearing heat, promoting urination and removing dampness.
Corn Silk and Mung Bean Sweet Soup
【Leaves】
You might be surprised, when did vegetable leaves become "waste"? In fact, when eating vegetables, many people use the parts with better taste and texture, such as rarely eating radish leaves when eating radishes, and eating more of the fleshy stems when eating lettuce. Which leaves do we often discard that are actually treasures?
★Radish Leaves—The radishes seen in supermarkets are mostly topped and tailed, and it is rare to see radish leaves. In fact, radish leaves and stems have the effects of stimulating appetite, stopping diarrhea, and treating dysentery. In addition to being rich in vitamin B1 and vitamin B2, radish leaves are also rich in carotene.
★Celery Leaves—Do you eat the leaves when eating celery? Different families with different eating habits may have different answers. If you have never eaten celery leaves, you might as well try adding them to your diet now, because the nutritional value of celery leaves is much higher than that of celery stems. Liu Jia introduced that research shows that the content of many nutrients in celery leaves (such as calcium, magnesium, vitamin C, etc.) is higher than that of celery stems, and it also contains vitamin E, which is not found in celery stems. In addition, celery leaves, like celery stems, have the effect of lowering blood pressure.
★Lettuce Leaves—Lettuce stems are delicious, which often makes people ignore the unattractive lettuce leaves. However, the nutritional value of lettuce leaves cannot be ignored. The β-carotene content in the leaves is 9.7 times higher than that in the stems, and they contain a lot of calcium. It is a pity to discard them.
Lettuce Leaf Rice
【Peels】
When cooking fruits and vegetables like eggplants, tomatoes, and cucumbers, do you peel them? I believe everyone has their own choice, and regardless of the convenience of ingredient preparation and nutritional value, not peeling is actually better. Liu Jia introduced that for fruits and vegetables, the most valuable parts are actually in the peels. For example, eggplant peels contain a lot of nutrients such as anthocyanins, pectin, and flavonoids; cucumber peels contain bitter substances. "The synthesis of many plant nutrients occurs in the part that can directly 'contact' sunlight—the peel." Liu Jia said, not only vegetable peels, but fruit peels are also very nutritious.
The reason modern people are unwilling to eat peels is more due to concerns about pesticide residues. Experts say that there may be some pesticide residues in vegetables, but they can be washed off carefully; secondly, the cooking process also helps to decompose organophosphate pesticides. It is worth mentioning that soaking for a long time does not help much in removing pesticide residues. It is recommended to wash vegetables with running water and then soak for a short while.
Garlic Mashed Eggplant
【Seeds】
Before cooking with peppers and melons, there is a troublesome step: removing the seeds. If these "little things" accidentally get into the dish, it not only affects the taste but also the texture. But these little things that we try to avoid have their own unique value. Liu Jia introduced that as the "seeds" of fruits and vegetables, their seeds are rich in nutritional value. For example, the pulp and seeds of peppers are very rich in vitamin C, even higher than the flesh part of the pepper. The most valuable is that they are rich in unsaturated fatty acids, which are very beneficial for our cardiovascular health.
Cantonese people have a limited tolerance for spicy food, so when cooking with peppers, they often remove the seeds to reduce the spiciness. But did you know that the aromatic hydrocarbons of peppers come from the seeds, which become very fragrant when exposed to high temperature. Now, popular dishes like Hunan cuisine and Sichuan cuisine never lack the seeds of peppers in their ingredients.
Another category is melon seeds, such as winter melon seeds and pumpkin seeds. When we cook winter melon for soups, we always remove the seeds. "Research has found that winter melon seeds contain saponins, fats, citrulline, unsaturated fatty acids, oleic acid and other components, which can effectively reduce the content of fat and cholesterol in the blood." Liu Jia suggests that for these beneficial ingredients, even if they are not "stewed together", they can be kept, for example, drying them and stir-frying them as a snack is also a good choice.
Pine Nut Corn