Can sea buckthorn fruit be used as medicine? The benefits and uses of the "King of Vitamin C" and how to eat it

Sea buckthorn is a plant in the Elaeagnaceae family. Its fruit is spherical, orange-yellow or orange-red, and rich in vitamin C. It is called the “King of Vitamin C” in China, the “fruit of longevity” in Japan, the “second ginseng” in Russia, the “energy of life” in the United States, and the “divine fruit” in India. So, can the sea buckthorn fruit be used as medicine? What are its benefits and uses? How do you eat it?

1. Can sea buckthorn fruit be used as medicine?

Sea buckthorn fruit can be used as medicine. It is generally harvested in autumn and winter when the fruit is ripe or frozen hard. Both fresh and dried fruit can be used medicinally. It has the benefits of strengthening the spleen and aiding digestion, relieving cough and expelling phlegm, and promoting blood circulation and dispersing blood stasis. It is an excellent cough-relieving and phlegm-resolving medicine, a stomach-strengthening and digestion-aiding medicine, and a blood-circulation-promoting and stasis-dispersing medicine.

2. What are the benefits and uses of sea buckthorn?

1. Expelling phlegm and relieving cough: Sea buckthorn used together with licorice, white raisins, gardenia, and costus root can treat cough with abundant phlegm. Fresh sea buckthorn fruit crushed and squeezed for juice, with white sugar added and taken with warm boiled water, can treat sore throat.

2. Strengthening the spleen and aiding digestion: Dried sea buckthorn taken as a decoction in water, or ripe fruit made into a medicinal paste, can treat stomach pain, indigestion, duodenal ulcers, and more. It has a notable effect on conditions such as chronic superficial gastritis, atrophic gastritis, and colitis.

3. Promoting blood circulation and dispersing blood stasis: Sea buckthorn can treat subcutaneous bleeding, irregular menstruation, and amenorrhea. It has a good therapeutic effect on cervical erosion in women, and can also treat burns, scalds, cuts, frostbite, and bruises from falls.

4. Sea buckthorn fruit and oil have the effects of lowering blood lipids, lowering cholesterol, and relieving angina attacks. They can help prevent and treat coronary atherosclerotic heart disease, and also have the benefits of resisting fatigue, fighting cancer, and enhancing the body's vitality, blocking free radicals produced by peroxidation of substances in the body and thereby exerting an anti-aging effect.

5. Besides its edible and medicinal uses, sea buckthorn also has an ecological greening role. Sea buckthorn is cold-resistant, drought-resistant, and tolerant of poor soil. It can be planted in dry, rain-scarce, and infertile places to restore vegetation and restore the food chain, playing a role in windbreaks and sand fixation, soil and water conservation, and soil improvement. It can also be planted in areas of the Loess Plateau with severe soil erosion to control sediment in the Yellow River and reduce flooding of the Yellow River.

3. What are the dietary restrictions for sea buckthorn?

Generally, people with excessively high body heat should not eat sea buckthorn. In addition, it should not be eaten together with almonds, should not be mixed with alkaline substances, and cannot replace medicine to directly treat diseases. It can only play an auxiliary therapeutic or improving role in treatment.

4. How do you eat sea buckthorn?

1. Fresh sea buckthorn fruit: It can be juiced directly. Wash the fruit, press it, press it again, let it stand, and then extract the upper clear juice. It can be made into sea buckthorn fruit powder by using spray drying or freeze drying on the juice. It can be made into sea buckthorn vinegar through fermentation, crushing, further fermentation, leaching vinegar, and leaching vinegar again. It can also be made into sea buckthorn jam, sea buckthorn wine, and more.

2. Sun-dried sea buckthorn fruit: The fruit can be boiled in water and mixed with white sugar to make sea buckthorn fruit sugar water. It can also be brewed as tea, used in soups, or ground into powder with other medicinal materials and taken with warm boiled water.