A Detailed Guide to the Benefits and Effects of Celery, Who It Suits, and Dietary Precautions

Celery, because of its strong aroma, is also called “medicinal celery”. Eating celery regularly, especially celery leaves, is very beneficial for preventing high blood pressure and arteriosclerosis, and has a supportive therapeutic effect. So what are the benefits and effects of celery? Who is it suitable for? What are the dietary precautions?

I. Benefits and Effects of Celery

1. Calms the liver and lowers blood pressure

Celery contains acidic blood-pressure-lowering components, and is clinically effective for essential, pregnancy-related and menopausal high blood pressure.

2. Calms the mind and soothes the nerves

Eating more celery helps stabilize the mood and dispel irritability.

3. Prevents and fights cancer

Through digestion in the intestines it produces a substance called lignin or intestinal lipids; this kind of substance is an antioxidant, and at high concentrations it can inhibit cancer-causing substances produced by intestinal bacteria. It can also speed up the transit time of feces through the intestines, reducing contact between carcinogens and the colonic mucosa, thereby achieving the goal of preventing colon cancer.

4. Nourishes the blood and replenishes deficiency

Celery has a relatively high iron content, can replenish the loss from women's menstrual blood, and eating it can prevent pale, dry skin and a dull complexion, and can also make the eyes bright and the hair black and shiny.

5. Clears heat and detoxifies

In spring the climate is dry, and people often feel dry mouth and tongue, panting, irritability and general discomfort; eating celery regularly helps clear heat and detoxify, ward off illness and strengthen the body. People with excessive liver fire, rough skin, and frequent insomnia or headaches can eat a little more of it.

6. Weight loss

While you are chewing celery in your mouth, the energy you expend is far greater than the energy the celery gives you.

II. Who It Suits

Generally everyone can eat celery. It is suitable for [people with high blood pressure and its complications], and those with [vascular sclerosis or neurasthenia] should also eat more celery.

· People who should avoid it

[Those with deficient cold of the spleen and stomach, loose and unstable intestines, low blood pressure, and men of childbearing age] should eat it with caution.

III. Dietary Precautions for Celery

1. Celery is best not eaten together with shrimp, dried small shrimp, vinegar, cucumber, pumpkin, clams, chicken, rabbit meat, turtle meat, soybeans, chrysanthemum, crab, small clams, or blood clams.

2. Celery is cool in nature and smooth in texture, so those with deficient cold of the spleen and stomach or diarrhea should not eat much of it; celery has a blood-pressure-lowering effect, so those with low blood pressure should not eat much of it.

3. Men of childbearing age should eat less celery, because eating celery regularly can reduce the number of male sperm, and men preparing to have children had best avoid celery entirely.

4. Celery should not be eaten in excess. Celery is a photosensitive vegetable; after people eat these vegetables, when the photosensitive substances in the body reach a certain concentration, exposure to sunlight can easily lead to a metabolic disorder of photosensitive substances and may cause dermatitis.

6. Celery and cucumber are not suitable to eat together; celery is rich in vitamin C, and cucumber contains a vitamin C-decomposing enzyme, so eating the two together reduces celery's nutritional value; celery should not be eaten with rabbit meat, as it can cause hair loss; eaten with chicken, it harms vital energy; eaten with soft-shelled turtle, it can cause poisoning.