The Benefits and Effects of Daylily and Precautions for Eating It

Daylily is the flower bud of plants in the Hemerocallis genus, named for its golden-yellow color, and once dried it is often called golden needle vegetable. It is both a common ingredient on the dining table and a traditional plant used as both food and medicine, and among the people it is also called the forget-your-worries grass. After fresh buds are steamed or blanched in boiling water and then sun-dried, they become the common dried daylily sold in markets.

From a nutritional standpoint, daylily contains protein, carotene, and various vitamins and minerals, and these components are relatively concentrated in the dried product. Traditional dietary therapy experience holds that daylily has the effects of clearing heat, promoting urination, and calming the mind, and it is often used alongside daily meals to help regulate the body's condition. However, this understanding mostly comes from folk experience, and the specific effects vary from person to person, so it cannot be used as a basis for treating disease.

In daily diet, there are quite a variety of ways to eat daylily. The dried product must first be soaked in warm water until rehydrated, then stir-fried or cooked in soup with eggs, lean meat, wood ear fungus, and the like, giving a refreshing taste and a unique flavor. The soaking time should not be too long, and it should also be fully heated during cooking so that both nutrition and taste are taken into account.

Particularly worth noting is that fresh daylily contains colchicine, and eating it directly in large amounts may cause gastrointestinal discomfort such as nausea and abdominal pain, so before eating it must be blanched in boiling water and fully soaked, and choosing the dried product is safer. In addition, people with weaker stomachs and intestines should control the amount they eat, and if obvious discomfort occurs, they should seek medical attention promptly.