Pomegranates contain various nutrients required by the human body. When eaten raw, they are sweet and juicy, moistening the throat, promoting saliva production, and quenching thirst. They can also be processed into refreshing beverages. If you peel the pomegranate, remove the seeds, chop the flesh, and cook it with sago into a porridge, then add sugar and osmanthus, it becomes a delicious and healthy pomegranate sago porridge that helps to cleanse the intestines and aid digestion.
The entire pomegranate plant can be used as medicine to treat various ailments. Its flowers are neutral in nature and sour and astringent in taste, and can be used to treat hemoptysis, lung pain, otitis media, and irregular menstruation. For example, to treat hemoptysis, take 24 fresh white pomegranate flowers and stew them with an appropriate amount of sugar. Li Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty recorded in his "Compendium of Materia Medica" that pomegranate peel "stops diarrhea and dysentery, reduces bleeding, treats prolapsed anus, and uterine bleeding." For chronic, unhealed dysentery, dried old pomegranate peel can be baked, ground into a fine powder, and taken with rice water. It can also be used to treat spermatorrhea, psoriasis, dermatitis from rice fields, and sores on the calf. Pomegranate roots can treat ascariasis, taeniasis, kidney stones, diabetes, and chyluria. For example, to treat kidney stones, take 30 grams each of pomegranate root and Hedyotis diffusa (金钱草) and decoct them in water for excellent results.
Modern pharmacological studies have shown that pomegranates contain tannins, resins, mannitol, and isopelletierine. Its flowers, peels, and root bark have antibacterial and antiviral properties and show significant inhibitory effects on Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and Proteus bacteria. Clinically, a decoction made from pomegranate peel has shown relatively good results in treating bacillary dysentery, amoebic dysentery, and other infectious diseases. The decoction of its root bark is very effective in killing tapeworms. In recent years, the Japanese medical community has also found that pomegranate fruit has certain therapeutic effects on liver disease, hypertension, and arteriosclerosis.