Winter melon is a very common vegetable, especially in the summer when it becomes widely available in the market. Many people are particularly fond of winter melon, and dishes like braised winter melon with pork and stir-fried winter melon are common home-cooked meals.
Stir-fried Winter Melon Skin
However, while everyone says winter melon is good, few people may have thought about what makes it so good. Also, when eating winter melon, do we only eat the flesh and neglect the skin and pulp? What other benefits do the skin and pulp have that we might not know? Let's discuss this in detail below.
The Benefits of Winter Melon
1. Cools Down and Relieves Summer Heat
Someone once conducted an experiment: on an unbearably hot summer day, they washed a winter melon and then slept while holding it. An hour later, they found they felt much cooler and refreshed. When they checked with a thermometer, their skin temperature had dropped by several degrees.
Regarding this peculiar habit of sleeping with a winter melon, experts say it doesn't demonstrate the melon's heat-relieving properties; its cooling effect comes from eating it. However, this incident does show that the belief in winter melon's ability to combat summer heat is deeply ingrained. As a seasonal summer vegetable, winter melon is considered cooling in nature, making it excellent for reducing heat and clearing heat toxins.
2. Promotes Urination and Bowel Movements
Winter melon is sweet in flavor and can invigorate the spleen. Its flesh contains large amounts of ornithine and aspartic acid, which are detoxifying substances, thus promoting the smooth flow of urine and bowel movements.
3. Helps Diabetics Quench Thirst
Winter melon is also a very suitable food for diabetics, as it can help patients quench their thirst.
4. Better Diuretic Properties
As mentioned above, winter melon is diuretic, but its most diuretic part is actually the skin. Experts explain that the skin contains more ornithine and aspartic acid than the flesh and seeds, making it the best part for its diuretic effect.
5. Prevents and Treats Gout
For preventing and treating gout with winter melon skin, here is a tea recipe: Winter Melon Skin, Money Plant, and Knotweed Tea. The name, "an inch long, an inch strong," sounds quite powerful, doesn't it?
Ingredients: 10g of winter melon skin, 3g of money plant, and a small amount of knotweed.
Instructions: It's best to brew in a ceramic pot. Place the ingredients in, add water, bring to a boil, and simmer for 5 minutes. Let it cool naturally before drinking. Alternatively, if conditions are limited, you can also steep it with boiling water.
The Benefits of Winter Melon Seeds
In addition to the skin, winter melon seeds are also very useful. They have whitening, cough-suppressing, phlegm-resolving, and lung-clearing effects. Grinding the seeds from an old winter melon into a powder and applying it to the face can help remove spots and whiten the skin.
The above is an introduction to the benefits of winter melon and its skin. I hope this information is helpful to everyone.
Cleaning up the winter melon