Edible Uses and Medicinal Value of Lilies

The lily is a flower that combines ornamental, edible, and medicinal uses. Below we focus on the edible and medicinal aspects of lilies.

Edible Uses of Lilies

Lilies have relatively high nutritional value, containing 21.29% protein, 12.43% fat, 11.47% reducing sugars, and 1.61% starch, with 1.443 mg of vitamin B and 21.2 mg of vitamin C per 100 g. There are many ways to eat lilies: they can be used in dishes and meals, and can be stir-fried, pan-fried, braised, steamed, or boiled, making it possible to create more than 30 kinds of dishes ranging from mid-range to high-end, among which the most prized include lily with snow lotus, candied lilies, and sweetened lily soup. During the Qingming season in the Tang Dynasty, the traditional "Dongshan lily" snack of Shanxi, Jiangsu, Shaanxi, and other places captivated countless diners, and local nobles even presented it to the imperial court as a high-grade gift. In the Suzhou lily-producing areas, this ballad still circulates today: "The lily blooms in the shape of a trumpet, its fruit is white and glistening, petal upon petal it wraps into a lotus body, a nourishing tonic for the body." In the depths of winter, what most attracts buyers' eyes in the Huangzhou vegetable market is the lily with plump fruits, elegant color, graceful shape, and especially rich nutrients. When Hunan's Xiang lily is boiled with meat, the color, aroma, and taste are all excellent; the meat is fragrant and the lily mellow, giving a distinctive flavor when eaten. In 1977, the Sanmenxia Cannery made lilies into canned food and displayed it at the Canton Fair, where demand exceeded supply. In lily-producing areas, people can also make lilies into snacks such as "osmanthus powder lily" and "glutinous rice lily porridge"; in rural areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, people often make lilies into soups and lily beverages to eat in summer; dried lilies, lily powder, canned lilies, and the like are even better gifts for visiting patients and showing respect to elders.

Medicinal Uses of Lilies

Lilies have relatively high nutritional components and also relatively high medicinal value. As early as more than 2,000 years ago, lilies were used in traditional Chinese medicine, and successive dynasties' "Materia Medica" contain detailed records of them. Traditional Chinese medicine holds that lilies have the functions of moistening the lungs and stopping cough, clearing the heart and calming the spirit, and tonifying the middle and boosting qi, and can treat pulmonary tuberculosis with chronic cough, coughing up phlegm and blood, deficiency-type restlessness, palpitations, mental, beriberi, and edema, among other conditions. Commonly used lily medicinal diet formulas include honey-fried lilies, lily fragrant rice porridge, lily codonopsis pork lung soup, lily egg soup, and stewed lily with meat; commonly used clinical prescriptions include Baihe Zhimu Tang, Baihe Dihuang Tang, Baihe Huabu San, dried lily powder, and fresh lily juice. Although lilies are an excellent tonic and famous food, because they are sweet, cold, and moistening in nature, they are contraindicated for those with wind-cold cough, loose stools, weak spleen and stomach, long-standing cold-dampness retention, and declining kidney yang.