Natural wonders

Kitchen potYour mother puts in a lot of effort to prepare food for you. She ensures that what you eat provides enough nourishment for your ...

Kitchen pot

Your mother puts in a lot of effort to prepare food for you. She ensures that what you eat provides enough nourishment for your body. Her kitchen is well equipped to meet your dietary requirements but what most mothers don8217;t know is, that their kitchen is a treasure mine of many medicinal plants. You will be surprised to know that most of the spices, apart from adding flavour to our food, have a great deal of medicinal value. Today, we will explore them. So come, let8217;s peep into your mummy8217;s masala box ! The yellow powder is turmeric haldi. She uses this to add colour to the food but medicinally this powder is useful in curing skin allergies, sore throat and wounds. The leaves tejpatta and barkdalchini of cinnamon are often used to prepare biryani or pulav. Besides this, they are useful in curing coughs and diabetes. The slender cumin jeera seeds are used in curing diarrhoea and a sore throat. This has also been found effective against skin disorders.

The pods of cardamom elaichi are used to flavour desserts. The black seeds are also useful in curing nausea, indigestion, abdominal pain and bronchitis. Cloves laung are used in biryanis and pulav but are also effective in curing toothaches, indigestion, nausea and hyperacidity.

The pale coloured powder of asafoedita hing is actually dried gum resin of a plant. For your mother, this may be just a flavouring agent, however it also improves appetite and digestion.

Yellow seeds of fenugreek methi are bitter in taste but they are effective in curing ailments like arthritis and spondylitis. There are many some more herbs and spices which your mother uses in her day-to-day food preparation which also have medicinal properties. Often with sandwiches she makes chutney of mint pudina. Medicinally, the leaves, stems and flowers are used to cure indigestion, sore throats, coughs, headaches and fever.

The pastes of ginger adrak and garlic lasun are common ingredients in wet masalas. But the roots of Acirc;nbsp; ginger are also useful in treating common colds and nausea while garlic oil drops are useful in curing ear infections. Now you know that medicinal plants are not only found in deep jungles but also in your own kitchen !

Fruit of fungus

Mushroom soup! Mushroom pulav! Paneer Mushroom and many, many more delicious dishes come to mind when we think of this particular food. But beyond this not much is known about it. Mushrooms are actually fruiting bodies of fungi. They form a small part of an enormous range of organisms known as fungi and their edible forms 8212; mushrooms 8212; are well known. They lack the green pigment chlorophyll and hence are not producerslike plants. Nor are they consumers like animals, which ingest their food. Instead, they secrete enzymes with which they break down substances in order to obtain food. Therefore they are called reducers.

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Mushrooms are found in two forms: edible and poisonous. Edible mushrooms contain more protein than any vegetable and are rich in vitamin B. All edible mushrooms are picked when young and fresh and cooked as soon as possible. Toadstools are poisonous mushrooms and are harmful to eat. Mushrooms are seen growing during the monsoon season. The mushrooms8217; commonly available in the market are of the edible variety like oyster mushrooms, morels, truffles and puff balls. Mushroom cultivation is a big industry in the US and Japan and is becoming popular in India, too. The veiled mushroom is a strange looking mushroom found in the forests of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. This mushroom has a broad, hollow stem in the centre with a muddy cap. From the rim of the cap grows a veil which covers the stem in a circular manner. The muddy cap emits a fermented, sugary odour which attracts small insects. These mushrooms are seen growing on the ground in a slanting position and when there is a breeze, the veil is lifted. Looking at this mushroom, one is reminded of a Christian bride with a veiled face. Penicillin, the wonder drug which is used in making antibiotics and yeast is obtained from other forms of fungi which are beneficial to mankind.