Wax gourd is a vegetable. Fruit belongs to the category of raw food, while vegetables need to be cooked in the kitchen before they can be eaten. In other words, from this perspective, wax gourd belongs to vegetables. Moreover, the places where wax gourd is planted are generally vegetable gardens, and most of them are mainly vegetables.
The growth of wax gourd is similar to that of watermelon. It is a kind of plant crawling around underground, but it is several times larger than watermelon and heavy. It is difficult for an adult to pick up a wax gourd. Generally, people who buy wax gourd in the vegetable market will cut it into pieces to buy and sell it. It is not only delicious, but also nutritious.
2. Is the wax gourd cold or hot?
Winter melon is cold. In addition, Chinese medicine believes that food has different tastes and functions. Food has four characteristics: cold, hot, warm and cool. Cold and heat are two "natures" distinguished in TCM diet, and the food that can alleviate and eliminate cold syndrome is called hot food. Foods that can reduce dryness and heat and improve heat quality are called cold foods.
Chinese medicine says: wax gourd is sweet in taste and cool in nature, and has the effects of clearing away heat, promoting diuresis and reducing swelling. Because of its low sodium content, wax gourd has a good auxiliary treatment effect on arteriosclerosis, ascites due to cirrhosis, coronary heart disease, hypertension, nephritis and edema.
And the seeds and skins of wax gourd can also be used as medicine. The meat and pulp of wax gourd have diuretic, heat-clearing, phlegm-resolving and thirst-quenching effects, and can also treat diseases such as edema, phlegm and asthma, summer heat and hemorrhoids. Boiling soup with winter melon skin can achieve the functions of detumescence, diuresis, clearing away heat and relieving summer heat.
3. What kinds of wax gourd are there?
There are many varieties of cultivated wax gourd in China, and the classification methods are different. Wax gourd can generally be classified according to plant maturity, fruit shape, wax powder and fruit size.
(a) according to the size of the fruit is divided into three types.
1, small: this variety is early mature. The node position of the first female flower is lower. Some can produce female flowers continuously. A plant bears many fruits. Small fruit. The shape is nearly round, oblate and long cylindrical, and tender fruits are generally picked. Single fruit weight 1.5~2.5 kg. The representative varieties are string bells in Beijing, small wax gourd in Jilin and wuye in Sichuan.
2. Medium-sized: multi-ripe, early-maturing and middle-early-maturing varieties, with medium-sized fruits, and generally the weight of a single fruit is 5- 10 kg.
3. Large-scale: Most of them mature in the middle and late maturity varieties, and the plants grow vigorously. Generally, the first female flower appears after the main vine 10 festival, and then 1 female flower or two consecutive female flowers appear every 5-7 festivals. The fruit is short and cylindrical, with turquoise skin and gray powder. Generally, the fruit is large, each fruit weighs 65438. The representative varieties are Guangzhou green-skinned wax gourd, Fujian Huada wax gourd, Chengdu wax gourd and Hunan white-skinned wax gourd.
(2) According to whether there is wax powder in the peel, it can be divided into two types.
1. White skin or vermicelli type: the fruit surface of this variety has white wax powder. As the fruit matures, wax powder increases and it is more resistant to sunburn. The representative variety is wax gourd in Changsha.
2. Green husk type: This variety has no ash powder on the fruit surface, and the pericarp is turquoise, which represents the green husk wax gourd variety in Guangzhou.
(3) According to the shape of fruit, it can be divided into three types.
Namely oblate, short cylindrical and long cylindrical. Some people also divide wax gourd into five types, namely, nearly round, short oblate, long oblate, short cylindrical and long cylindrical.
(4) According to the maturity of wax gourd, it can be divided into three types.
Namely, early maturing varieties, middle maturing varieties and late maturing varieties. This classification is widely used in vegetable cultivation.
4. What season is winter melon?
Winter melon is mainly supplied in summer and autumn. Wax gourd is usually picked in late summer and early autumn when the fruit is ripe, and the picking period is about 45 days. At this time, the melon skin is bright and dark green, while most of the leaves of the plant remain green but not yellow. You can pick it in the sunny morning at this time.
Although winter melon is winter, it is not a winter vegetable. Because the melon is ripe, there will be a layer of white powder on the surface, just like frosting in winter. This is also the reason, so it is called winter melon, also called white melon.
5. Is wax gourd acidic or alkaline?
Wax gourd is an alkaline food. Wax gourd is sweet in taste and cold in nature, and has the effects of clearing heat, promoting diuresis and reducing swelling. Wax gourd has low calorific value and belongs to light food. Wax gourd is the vegetable with the highest water content. Because winter melon is cool, it can clear away heat and relieve summer heat, induce diuresis and relax bowels, and help the human body to clear waste and detoxify.
6. Is wax gourd wool?
Wax gourd is wool. Winter melon is actually a kind of hair-like food, so we should pay attention to the problems of people who eat winter melon in daily life. In our daily life, some people with special diseases are not recommended to eat wax gourd, which will lead to certain adverse effects on the body.