Bitter-Gourd (Karela): A Must-Add Vegetable In Daily Cooking

Shalini my best friend has started taking bitter guard juice twice soon after she got a high blood sugar report. I don’t know what it means; but should we eat that much bitter guard to get healthy??

Momordica Charania – the scientific name of the bitter guard. It tastes bitter. But it looks like cucumber shape with special texture in it. It is mostly green in color. It is one tropical vegetable and used to eat as a vegetable by many country fellows, including Africa, Asia, South America.

Bitter-Gourd is a fruit, not vegetable, the part that is been used for medicinal purposes or for consumption is the fruit of bitter squash or bitter gourd. Apart from its taste, it has many medicinal properties that are very helpful in providing nutritious value for our body. It is the only fruits whose juice is also as beneficial as the original fruit. This fruit is very healthy whether you like the taste or not it must be on your diet plate. You need to include this fruit because of several reasons it has an ample amount of iron, vitamin c and other vitamins and properties of magnesium and potassium.

Even the juice is also beneficial doctors and dietitians consider these juice for the patients suffering from sugar or diabetes. The juice has some magical properties that are really helpful for diabetic patients. According to the WHO (World Health Organisation) over 380 million people are suffering from diabetes. In 2011 a study was conducted over diabetic patients that if they regularly consume Bitter Gourd juice then the level of blood glucose in the blood gets decreases drastically. Though as soon as your blood sugar level goes down the immunity power of the body increases. That helps in the fighting ability of the body. As you regularly start to eat Bitter-Gourd the cholesterol level also starts to low down, and specifically the bad cholesterol level. If the cholesterol level is low then the chance of heart attack and stroke gets very low. Another important property is that it is rich in potassium, potassium absorbs the excessive sodium in the body and maintains the blood pressure.

 Nutritional Values:

• Calorie Content:

It is having quite low energy (calorie), Only 100 gm can provide 17 kcal. So it is not a big concern for eating this vegetable may lead you to become obese.

Also read: Fruits Juices Can Provide Best Calories!!

• Vitamins:

It consists good amount of B vitamins, not only that the fresh bitter guards are rich in Vitamin-c and Vitamin-A as well.

• Minerals:

It is rich in iron, copper, calcium, magnesium, zinc, etc. It is also less in sodium content, thus people having a sodium-restricted diet may consume this vegetable without any hesitation.

• Folate:

Our 18 % recommended Daily Intake (RDI) can be supplied through 100gm of the bitter guard only. Folate is one crucial micronutrient for many functions in our body.

Here we mentioned only important nutrient which is rare in nature but an ample amount is present into this vegetable. Thus now the question arises why we need to eat bitter guard daily??

Actually, there are so many health benefits that actually directing us to add it to our daily diet. It is as follows;

• Many previous studies already proved that it helps in controlling type-2 Diabetes Mellitus. Even ancient medicine of China and Indian Ayurveda use of the bitter guard in controlling blood sugar levels is very beneficial. The inability to absorb sugar from the blood is one main problem in this disease. The absorption of sugar mainly takes place due to the activation of AMP-activated protein kinase in our cells. Now bitter gourd activates this kinase due to this reason blood sugar absorbs. It stimulates insulin secretion as well.
• Improves constipation: Bitter gourd contains insoluble and soluble both types of fiber. Consumption of these vegetables thus helps to increase stool formation and bowel movement. Thus it helps in Constipations.
• In many ways, the bitter guard is cardioprotective! It actually lowers the Low-Density Lipoprotein (LDL level in blood. Not only that controlling blood sugar and LDL levels help to protect against block formation and chances of a heart attack.
• Bitter guard act as anti-aging agents. This vegetable contains a lot of antioxidants thus it helps to reduce oxidative stress in many ways. This is why it acts as an anti-aging agent. Not only that it protects us from cancer.

• Bitter gourd juice has antimicrobial and antioxidant properties, thus bitter gourd juice helps to purify your blood, further improves blood circulation and is very healthy for your skin and hair.

Also read: Bitter Gourd? Must Add In Your Daily Meals !!

Bitter gourd intake is very useful in treating skin infection, hair dandruff.etc. for having shiny and beautiful hair and skin bitter gourd intake is very useful.

But nothing in excess can be good! So here it is –bitter gourd should not be consumed in excess amount daily. It can cause many health problems.

• Nausea and abdominal pain
• Pregnant women should avoid it as it can lead to premature labor pain
• Patients having low blood sugar drugs and if taken excess bitter gourd along with it, then may lead to the hypoglycemic condition.