Plants with a healing effect >>>> Okra is medicinal and nutritious

Okra is medicinal and nutritious.

It is pleasant to eat plants that not only have nutritional value, but also have medicinal qualities. So the okra plant, along with nutritional properties, also has pronounced medicinal properties.

Okra is a plant of the tropics, and recently cultivated in the southern latitudes of countries with a cold climatic zone. The beneficial properties of Okra are known back in the era of the reign of the pharaohs, but due to the special growing conditions, Okra began to be cultivated in European countries only after the climate change towards warming, so that Okra acquired its nutritional and medicinal value in the countries of Europe, Asia and North America relatively recently. and until then it was a popular food product exclusively in warm countries with hot climates (Africa, India, South America).

Okra's nutritional value is represented by its pods - boxes with seeds. But the relatively rapid coarsening of the fibrous part of the capsules (ribs) greatly limits the growing season for the use of Okra - only young Okra pods are eaten as a vegetable, and when ripe, the usefulness of Okra is contained inside the pods - in seeds that successfully imitate a coffee drink - are a tonic.

For this reason, the beneficial and healing ingredients of Okra are found in various parts of it in fleshy young capsules - the pods are rich in pectin (galacturic acid), folic acid, ascorbic acid, fiber, B vitamins. The seeds and roots of Okra are rich in flavonoids and glycosides. The fatty component of Okra seeds is similar in quality to olive oils.

The medicinal properties of Okra are determined by the entire chemical composition of the pods, roots and seeds:

an enveloping substance that protects the walls of the gastrointestinal tract from injury and creates "soft" conditions for the advancement of the food lump (pods),
natural fiber for the prevention of constipation, colitis, difficulty in intestinal motility (pods),
prevention of atherosclerosis and obesity (pods),
antidiabetic action (pods),
improving the state of metabolic processes in the skin (pods),
beneficial effect on strengthening the nervous system (pods),
tonic for the nervous system (water infusion of seeds),
expectorant and anti-inflammatory effect (water infusion of roots).

So that the pods of Okra do not lose all their useful medicinal composition, they prepare it with gentle methods - steaming, passaging, blanching. But for a low-calorie diet, okra is boiled, stewed, fried in the same way as green beans.

Okra is a valuable dietary product for a diet for atherosclerosis, a diet for obesity, a diet for diabetes, a diet for colitis and other bowel disorders, a diet for skin diseases, and a diet for pregnancy.

The calorie content of okra pods is no more than 30 kcal per one hundred grams of the product, which makes this vegetable attractive for everyday, sports and medical nutrition.