Wild Vegetables Comparable to Medicine: A Review of the Health Benefits of Common Spring Wild Vegetables
Core Tip: With the arrival of the spring season, filled with the songs of birds and the fragrance of flowers, all grasses begin to sprout. Wild vegetables such as mustard greens and purslane start to grow again. Don't underestimate these wild vegetables; they possess many amazing health benefits and medicinal properties. For instance, shepherd's purse has health benefits such as harmonizing the spleen, promoting urination, stopping bleeding, and improving eyesight. Below, we will review the health benefits of spring wild vegetables.
With the arrival of the spring season, filled with the songs of birds and the fragrance of flowers, all grasses begin to sprout. Wild vegetables such as mustard greens and purslane start to grow again. Did you know? Don't underestimate these wild vegetables; they possess many amazing health benefits and medicinal properties. For instance, shepherd's purse has health benefits such as harmonizing the spleen, promoting urination, stopping bleeding, and improving eyesight. Below, we will review the health benefits of spring wild vegetables.
Purslane: Treats Diabetes
Because it is rich in noradrenaline, it can promote the pancreas to secrete insulin, regulate the body's sugar metabolism process, and maintain stable blood sugar levels, so it has certain health benefits for treating diabetes. In addition, it also contains unsaturated fatty acids, which can inhibit the production of cholesterol and triglycerides, and has a protective effect on the cardiovascular system. There are many ways to eat it, such as stir-frying after blanching, cold mixing, or making fillings. For example, stir-fried purslane with eggs, steamed purslane buns, or cooking a garlic and purslane congee to clear heat and stop dysentery.
Shepherd's Purse: Tonifies the Kidneys and Strengthens the Spleen
Shepherd's purse is a "genuine medicinal herb". Traditional Chinese medicine believes that shepherd's purse has a pungent and sweet taste, and a cool and neutral nature. It has health benefits such as harmonizing the spleen, promoting urination, stopping bleeding, and improving eyesight, and can treat hypertension, coronary heart disease, dysentery, nephritis, and other diseases.
The leaves of shepherd's purse are tender and the roots are plump, with a tempting aroma and delicious flavor. It is rich in protein, carbohydrates, carotene, vitamin C, and various amino acids and minerals needed by the human body. In spring, pick the tender stems and leaves or the overwintering buds of shepherd's purse. After blanching, they can be eaten cold with sauce, in soups, as fillings, or stir-fried. It can also be cooked into a delicious shepherd's purse congee.
Sow Thistle: Clears Heat and Cools Blood
Traditional Chinese medicine believes that sow thistle has a bitter and cold nature. It contains protein and various vitamins, and has health benefits such as clearing heat and detoxifying, cooling the blood, etc. It can treat mastitis, upper respiratory tract infections, acute pharyngitis, and cellulitis. The ethanol extract of sow thistle, concentrated by water decoction, has an inhibitory effect on acute lymphocytic leukemia, acute and chronic granulocytic leukemia. Sow thistle can be stir-fried with meat or eggs, made into soup, or mixed with soybean flour to make small tofu. It can also be scalded with boiling water and eaten with bean paste.
Watercress: Lowers Blood Pressure
Watercress has health benefits such as clearing heat and detoxifying, moistening the lungs, strengthening the spleen and harmonizing the stomach, promoting digestion, inducing diuresis, stopping bleeding, lowering blood pressure, resisting hepatitis, resisting arrhythmia, and antibacterial. Common dishes we eat include stir-fried pork with watercress, watercress and lamb dumplings, and watercress with peanuts.
Bracken: Calms the Mind
Eating bracken can have health benefits such as clearing heat and lubricating the intestines, lowering qi and resolving phlegm, promoting urination and calming the mind. However, dried bracken or bracken pickled in salt should be soaked in water before eating to rehydrate it. Common ways to eat it include stir-fried pork tenderloin with bracken, braised pork with bracken, and cold-dressed bracken.
Platycodon: Anti-ulcer
Platycodon has health benefits such as resolving phlegm, relieving cough and pain, relieving fever, sedation, lowering blood sugar, anti-inflammation, anti-ulcer, anti-tumor, and antibacterial.
Spiny Shoots: Tonifies the Kidneys and Benefits Essence
The main edible part of spiny shoots is its tender buds, which can have health benefits such as tonifying qi, activating blood, expelling wind, promoting urination, relieving pain, and tonifying the kidneys and benefiting essence.
Scallion: Prevents Arteriosclerosis
The health benefits of scallion are to unblock yang and transform qi, open the chest and dissipate stagnation, promote qi and guide stagnation, treat dysentery, lower blood lipids, and prevent atherosclerosis. Main ways to eat it include scallion mixed with tofu, and scallion and wood ear mushroom congee.