Berry Good

Let8217;s begin with that pale green fleshy fruit with six gently defined ridges. Call it amla, the Indian gooseberry or amritphal like they do in Ayurveda. Either way, there8217;s no getting away from the fact that amla features in a 7th century Ayurvedic medical text and the sage Chyawan is reputed to have restored his vitality with it.

It forms one-third of the colon rejuvenation tonic called Triphala three fruits tonic and of Chyavanprash, the general tonic which improves mental and physical well being.

No wonder sherbets are made from it, decoctions of the leaves and seeds are used in high fevers and in the treatment of diabetes. Amla pickles are good for digestion and amla juice, piper longum long pepper and honey are used to calm hiccups. A syrup of Amalaki and lemon juice is used to cure diarrhoea. In traditional Ayurvedic medicine, amla has also been indicated as a powerful tonic and is useful for anaemia, asthma, bleeding gums, diabetes, colds, chronic lung disease, scurvy, and cancer.

Sounds great, doesn8217;t it? Now, here8217;s what modern medicine has to say.

First of all, the fruit is one of the richest sources of vitamin C, containing up to 720 mg/100g of fresh pulp and 921 mg/100cc of pressed juice. This is nearly 20 times the vitamin C content of an orange. The active ingredient that has significant pharmacological action in amla is designated by Indian scientists as phyllemblin.

In India, several animal studies in laboratories show that amla protects organisms against chromosome damage from heavy metal aluminum, lead, nickel exposure. Dhir 1990 Giri. Jacob 1988 used raw amla in the diets of men age 35 to 55 with high cholesterol for 28 days. Decreased cholesterol levels were registered.

In fact, studies in the Niwa Institute of Immunology in Japan have shown amla to be a potent scavenger of free radicals, the stress-related reactive oxygen-based ions which clutter up an unhealthy body. Experiments on patients with pulmonary tuberculosis showed that the natural vitamin C in the amla berry was more quickly assimilated than synthetic vitamin C. I personally love it for its natural balance of tastes8212;sweet, sour, bitter and astringent. Is it any wonder that Ayurveda deems it to be tridosaghna and amritphal or the nectar of the Gods?