By No one can say today that they have never heard of the connection between disease and nutrition. Hippocrates’ saying, “Let your food be your medicine”, has been quoted enough times to know that ordinary foods can very well be medicines. The widespread misconception that everything healthy tastes bad has lingered in the minds of humanity for a surprisingly long time, and sometimes it takes real convincing before the opposite is recognized. Let’s take everyday vegetables, for example: Of course, we know that vegetables are healthy, but in most cases, we don’t know why that is.
Examples of the healthy effects of everyday vegetables
Few people know that cucumbers have a very positive effect on the entire organism and that nutritionists recommend beans as a complete substitute for meat due to their many ingredients. Carrots also have more to offer than provitamin A. And asparagus, the long white stalks, help with dropsy and obesity. Celery is much more than just a soup seasoning, and it has a cleansing effect on the entire organism, makes you sweat and promotes digestion.
Radish as a “snack” is well known to us: It also loosens stubborn mucus in coughs and hoarseness? Do we know that shredded lettuce leaves and applied to the skin as a poultice help with inflammation and burns?
These and many other types of vegetables are more than just tasty and filling side dishes for potatoes and rice. They are perfect for us and, when used correctly, have exceptional properties that promote our health. The selection made below serves only as an illustrative example that Hippocrates was right in his assertion.
Like the vegetables we know, all the many herbs that are just waiting to be recognized by us for what they are outside in the fields and fields have their meaningful use at the table. It’s just a pity that we know so little about the healing “side effects” of our vegetables and salads.
Finally, a quote from a doctor who expresses what we have always known in our hearts: “What folly it is to think that God waited for the big chemical companies to appear before giving his creatures remedies. ”
Beans in cooking and medicine
At best, when we think of “fennel”, we can think of the “fennel for children” that is well-known in folk medicine. Maybe we also know that fennel tea is good for little ones with flatulence. But not only fennel tea, which is made from the seeds of the fennel plant, has such sound effects. The root, the fennel bulb, also has medicinal properties. Fennel bulbs are not thick and round but relatively flat and wide and have solid lateral roots. The whitish-green, thick-layered layers of the tuber are cut into small pieces and steamed as a vegetable or eaten raw in a salad. The taste is typical of fennel: rather mildly aromatic than intensely spicy.
The proven ingredients of fennel are essential oils, phenol, estragole, chlorogenic and caffeic acid. The healing effect of fennel colle is limited to the diuretic effect, which can be optimized with a light decoction from the root, of which you can take 2-3 cups a day.
Once again, we should come back to the use of fennel seeds because their healing properties are not limited to small children’s ailments. What is certain is that fennel seeds have a delicious digestive effect, relieve cramps and stop fermentation in the intestine. In the case of abdominal cramps – and not only in those of small children – it is advisable to drink a cup of warm fennel tea, as is the case with abdominal pain. Fennel seed is also said to be good for vomiting and hiccups. Here, as always in life, the proof of the pudding is eating.
External use: Fennel tea (prepared from the plant’s seeds) poured into hot bath water results in a stimulating, deodorizing and cleansing bath. It also helps with inflamed eyelids. Used as a gargle and mouthwash, it improves bad breath. The advertising slogan “Fennel for toddlers” – which also refers to fennel honey – can safely be modified so that we adults can also benefit from fennel. And not just because fennel vegetables
It tastes so good.
Cucumbers – power packs of medicinal substances
Sayings like “Everyone can confidently swear by the medicinal value of our carrots” are generally well remembered, if only because of the catchy rhyme. Of course, we all know that carrots are healthy. We also know that they contain quite a significant amount of carotene. But carrots, carrots, turnips, roots, carrots or garden carrots, as they are popularly called, all have more than “just” carotene. They have always been valued for their wealth of provitamins and minerals because the carrot culture is ancient and can be traced back to 2000 BC. Ingredients of the carrots:
- essential oils,
- alkaloids,
- pyrrolidine and
- Dancin, Mannitol and the
- Vitamins A, B, C and D as well
- different minerals
They are scientifically proven and have an extraordinary spectrum of active ingredients.
Internal use:
Fresh carrots increase the body’s resistance, especially the gastrointestinal tract. The fresh root is excellent for children with intestinal problems (diarrhoea), while the cooked root is used as a substitute for food until the symptoms improve. Grated raw carrots are a good remedy for coughs, hoarseness and mouth sores. Make a tasty cough syrup from carrot juice and syrup (possibly sugar), which children especially like. Since carrots are relatively high in potassium, they are diuretic and help prevent build-up and metabolic waste. So it can rightly be said that carrots cleanse and strengthen the organism, hence boosting the immune system.
People with diabetes should drink a lot of carrot juice, and regular consumption promotes the elimination of sugar in the body. Drivers who often have to drive at night are often advised to take vitamin A supplements to strengthen their stressed eyes because it is known that this vitamin is good for the eyes.
External use:
Raw, freshly grated carrots help with skin irritation, relieve sunburn, and stimulate new skin formation. It is generally said that carrots are perfect for the skin. They nourish and tighten wrinkled tissue and soothe inflamed areas of the skin (if you have susceptible skin, use a compress to be on the safe side).
Beetroot – Strengthening of the immune system
Much more than a soup herb Celery, also known as soup herb, is an ancient crop known to the ancient Egyptians. Whether it was the cultivated form of the plant or its wild state is not known. It is well known today that wild celery is even more valuable than the one produced from it. But this one still has a lot of good things in store for us.
The following are known active ingredients: the glycoside Appin, oleoresin, traces of essential oils, petroselinic acid and vitamins A, B1 and C. Celery promotes water elimination has a cleansing, diaphoretic and digestive effect. Eating as much celery as possible is particularly recommended for those suffering from gout and rheumatism.
The popular belief that celery has a stimulating and stimulating effect on sexual powers has not yet been scientifically proven. However, it is known that leaves and roots stimulate the entire urinary system and can be used successfully as a remedy for uricemia (excessively high sugar levels in the blood), kidney semolina, bladder catarrh and obesity. In addition, celery also has digestive.
Celery does not necessarily have to be eaten as a tuber. Even when dried prepared as tea, it has its effect. Celery tincture is also a way to incorporate the healing powers of celery. It is hardly any effort to make it yourself: approx. Twenty grams of the root tuber are mixed with 100 ml of 25% alcohol for 10 days. Once complete, take 1 to 2 tablespoons twice a day, and the diuretic, digestive effects are usually not long in coming. Celery juice is a dosage form that is primarily obtained from the leaves. The “soup herb” also unfolds its full healing powers here. Celery juice can be purchased in pharmacies, health food stores, and stores.
Celery is more than just a soup seasoning, even if the name “soup herb” hardly reveals anything about the health-promoting properties of the plant.
Asparagus – also medicinal as a tea
White cabbage is an ancient vegetable thrives in every cottage garden between marigolds and cress. The thick, round heads often require two strong arms when harvesting because white cabbage can weigh a kilo depending on the variety. In autumn, the surplus vegetables were traditionally processed into sauerkraut. Almost every village household had its large sauerkraut pot. At least once a week, there was sauerkraut, hearty and delicious, with or without meat. It’s just a pity that the vitality of the healthy lactic acid bacteria was inhibited by the heating, if not eradicated. Today we know that raw sauerkraut is far more beneficial than cooked one. As a vegetable and raw vegetable salad, white cabbage enriches our menu. It is known for its wealth of vitamins: vitamin A, Bl, B2, C and E. If the leafy vegetables are fermented with lactic acid, sauerkraut, colin and lactic acid are added.
Finely spiced sauerkraut is ideal for a pleasant spring cure, eliminating toxins and optimizing digestion and elimination. If you are constipated, consuming a cup of raw sauerkraut a day is advisable, possibly combined with half a litre of buttermilk. This mixture stimulates intestinal activity most pleasantly, without any side effects. Sauerkraut juice is also used for intestinal care.
Some may smile and shake their heads when they hear about the traditional home remedies that people use to treat all sorts of ailments. For example, poultices with sauerkraut water were made for burns and ulcers – wholly forgotten in our modern age.
