Bitter Melon for Weight Loss and Blood Sugar Control: The Best Ways to Eat It, Whether It Is Still Edible Once It Turns Yellow, and When It Was Introduced to China
Bitter melon is an annual climbing, weak herbaceous plant, also known as balsam pear, bitter gourd, brocaded lychee, and warty melon, with a flowering and fruiting period from May to October. The fruit tastes sweet and bitter, and is mainly used as a vegetable, though it can also be candied.So how should bitter melon be eaten for the best weight loss and blood sugar-lowering effects? Can it still be eaten after it turns yellow? When was it introduced to China?
How should bitter melon be eaten for the best weight loss and blood sugar-lowering effects?
Weight loss
Bitter melon juice: For weight loss and slimming, bitter melon juice is an indispensable excellent choice.
1. Take one fresh bitter melon, remove the seeds and cut it into pieces, then put it into a blender and juice it.
2. It is recommended to juice one per day or juice it in portions, because excessive consumption will increase the burden on the stomach. Friends with a poor appetite are not advised to drink it.
Stir-fried bitter melon with carrot and onion
1. Weight loss principle: This stir-fried bitter melon with carrot and onion not only helps burn fat and speed up the burning of body fat, but also helps with weight loss and resistance to radiation, with a very wide range of benefits.
2. Ingredients: a little more than half a bitter melon, a small half of a carrot, and half an onion.
3. Cooking steps: First wash the bitter melon, carrot, and onion, then slice them separately; add half a spoonful of salt to the bitter melon slices, mix well and marinate for 10 minutes, then rinse with water and drain; put a small amount of oil into the pan, then pour the onion slices into the pan and stir-fry for 1 minute, then add the carrot slices and stir-fry until 80 percent cooked; then add the bitter melon slices, stir-fry all three together for 3 minutes, and add seasonings.
Lowering blood sugar
The blood sugar-lowering effect of bitter melon is not very obvious; eating it raw directly is fine, and stir-frying it is also fine.
Can bitter melon still be eaten after it turns yellow?
1. In fact, bitter melon can be eaten after it turns yellow. This is just a normal color presentation of ripe bitter melon, and it will not produce so-called substances harmful to human health. It is just that the nutritional components will be somewhat lost, and the taste and flavor are not very good; when eaten, it no longer has a crisp feeling, but rather a fleshy and soft texture, so few people choose to eat it.
2. For some friends who cannot tolerate the bitterness of bitter melon, yellow bitter melon can also be eaten. Because overripe bitter melon tastes milder; although the nutritional components will be lost and the certain effects it exerts on human health will be somewhat reduced, relatively speaking, it is still beneficial to human health.
3. Yellow bitter melon is suitable for stir-frying or soaking in water to drink, and is not suitable for cold dressing; for cold dressing, it is best to use green bitter melon, which is crisper and tastes better. In fact, it is still recommended to eat bitter melon, because not only are the taste and texture better, but eating bitter melon appropriately can also lower the body's blood sugar level and play a certain positive role in human health.
When was bitter melon introduced to China?
1. Bitter melon has a long history of cultivation in India, Japan, and Southeast Asia. It was introduced to Europe in the 17th century, mostly for ornamental use. In China, there are already records of bitter melon in the Ming Dynasty work Jiu Huang Ben Cao (1406) written by Zhu. Xu Guangqi of the Ming Dynasty, in Nong Zheng Quan Shu (1639), mentioned that southerners greatly ate bitter melon. This shows that bitter melon was widely cultivated in southern China at that time, and it is now distributed throughout China.
2. Bitter melon gets its name from its taste. The word "bitter" does not sound pleasant, so people in Guangdong also call it cool melon (people in Guangdong do not call it cool melon, only bitter melon; it was only after people from other places or other provinces came to Guangdong that it was called cool melon). Bitter melon has a shape like warty protrusions, so it is also called warty melon; the surface of the melon is wrinkled, resembling lychee, so it is also called brocaded lychee.