Detoxifying and cooling vegetables for summer
Water spinach treats food poisoning and dysentery; pennywort treats acne and itching; squash helps clear the meridians, increase milk production, and stabilize pregnancy, according to Oriental medicine.
General practitioner Bui Dac Sang, Academy of Science and Technology, said that water spinach grows underwater or on land, roots at the nodes, has a sweet and mild taste, cool properties, and has many effects such as clearing heat, diuresis, and hangover relief. This vegetable is also rich in calcium and nutrients such as protein, glucid, iron... which are good for health, when boiled and eaten daily it also cures high blood pressure.
Some remedies from water spinach are as follows:
500g water spinach, 30g licorice, 120g mung beans, boil to get concentrated water to drink, helps treat food poisoning. Also, mash the same amount of vegetables, squeeze to get the juice, mix in honey and drink slowly, cures bleeding, blood in urine.
7 young shoots with sugar, crushed, applied on skin, cures hives, itching; or boiled with pomegranate peel juice, a handful of each, cures dysentery.
Put a bunch of fresh water spinach in the belly of a clean, pure yellow chicken, then pour water over the chicken, add a cup of wine, cook until soft, eat the chicken and water, three times a day, cures severe edema (unable to sit or lie still, face and body swollen).
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| Water spinach is cooling and has many medicinal uses. Photo:Cam Anh |
Gotu kola
Gotu kola grows wild, and our people often eat it raw, pickle it, boil it, or cook it into soup. In some regions, gotu kola is ground and mixed with sugar to make a soft drink. This vegetable contains 88.2% water, in addition to proteins and minerals. In Oriental medicine, the vegetable has a bitter taste, cool properties, and has the effect of clearing heat, detoxifying, fighting infections, anti-poisoning, and diuretic; it is used to treat urinary tract diseases and stones, pimples, itching, runny nose, and sore throat.
You can mix gotu kola juice with coconut water to drink to quench your thirst and provide nutrition; or pound gotu kola to get the juice to drink and apply externally to help cool down, treat fever, itching, and acne.
Pound a handful of pennywort, 30g of kudzu root, and a handful of purslane, add boiled water, strain to get the liquid to drink or boil to drink, cures colds, thirst, headache, hot skin, itchy rash, stomachache, and constipation.
Gotu kola 30g, Eclipta prostrata 15g, Thuja cyperus rotundus 15g, roasted, decocted to drink to treat bleeding gums and nosebleeds.
Fresh pennywort in a suitable amount can be boiled and eaten or drunk as a milk-stimulating medicine; when pounded, the fresh juice can be drunk or boiled to treat coughs, painful urination, and frequent urination.
squash
Luffa is sweet, neutral, and has many effects such as clearing heat, detoxifying, diuretic, expectorant, cooling blood, clearing meridians, increasing milk secretion, replenishing energy, and stabilizing pregnancy.
Many parts of the luffa plant are used as medicine, such as: luffa fiber has a sweet taste, neutral properties, anti-inflammatory, blood-clearing, diuretic, hemostatic effects; treats joint pain, muscle pain, chest pain, mastitis, and clogged milk ducts. Can use 10-20g per day.
Bitter melon leaves are sour and bitter, slightly cold, have anti-inflammatory and expectorant effects; treat whooping cough, headache, and summer thirst; dosage 10-15 g per day.
Luffa seeds are sweet, neutral, have the effect of clearing blood vessels and dissolving phlegm; treat cough, phlegm, roundworms, constipation; dosage 5-20 g per day.
Luffa root has anti-inflammatory effects; treats rhinitis and sinusitis, use 40-120 g per day.
Luffa tendrils have anti-inflammatory effects; treat rhinitis and sinusitis; dosage 40-60 g per day.
Some dishes and medicines from squash are as follows:
Fresh luffa fruit cooked with pig's trotters, cures low milk supply in postpartum women. Burn the dried luffa fruit (do not burn it completely to ash, only burn the outer layer about 70%), grind into powder, drink 8g each time with alcohol, cures blocked milk ducts. Crush luffa leaves, squeeze out the juice, soak and apply to cure postpartum impetigo.
