Turning towards a healthy lifestyle starts with the consumption of the right food. Including beneficial foods can give a lot of benefits to our health. Wood apple is considered sacred in India. It is commonly used for making a lot of traditional medicines as well as a lot of foods. It has some popular names such as Japanese bitter orange, golden apple, stone apple and Bengal quince. Wood apple is a very useful plant and almost every part of the plant is useful. It is a very essential ingredient in many Ayurvedic medicines.
Wood apple is spherical in shape and it is very big in size. The outside shell at first takes a grayish green color. Later on it turns into pale yellow. The outer shell is very hard and has to be cracked with the help of a hammer. Inside the shell, we find pulp with yellow color. It is very fibrous and has a good aroma. The seeds are hairy and are coated with mucilage. Wood apple pulp is tangy and has the aroma of rose. It can be consumed when it is unripe or when it is ripe.
Wood apple contains a lot of nutritious substances, antioxidants and many other compounds. Some of the components of this fruit are: Protein, Fat, Carbohydrates, Riboflavin, Niacin, Thiamin, Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Calcium, Potassium and Phosphorus. Wood apple tree is a very important medicinal plant in India, as per the records founded in the Charaka Samhita, a record on old health care treatment. Every part of the plant that consists of fruit, leaves, stem, bark and root do have therapeutic properties. This fruit has been used right from old ages for treatment of many diseases.
Benefits of the fruit
Helps to prevent Constipation
It is one of the best laxatives you could find. When you think about cleaning your intestine, all you need is ripe wood apple. You can consume it daily for a period of 2 or 3 months. Consumption of wood apple can be in the form of pulp or even sherbet. Discard the seeds and mix the pulp with milk. You can add sugar to taste too. It can be even consumed without adding sugar. An adult can consume around 50 grams of the pulp.
As a treatment for Diarrhea and Dysentery
You can treat diarrhea as well as dysentery by consuming unripe wood apple fruit. It is very effective in curing these illnesses. The unripe fruit can be sliced, dried after keeping before the sun and then can be powdered for storing. This powder can be used. Around one teaspoon of wood apple powder can be mixed with warm water twice a day. You can add a bit of brown sugar to taste. This will help in mucus in dysentery. It will take around one week to get the complete effect. So if you have severe dysentery, then you need to immediately take the advice of a doctor and carry on with medical treatment.
As a treatment for Peptic Ulcer
Tannin is present in abundance in wood apple. This helps in curing ulcers. The wood apple leaves are soaked in water overnight and this water is strained and consumed as a beverage every week. Sherbet can be made from the ripe wood apple fruit. This can be consumed to cure ulcers. The fruit juice covers the inner mucosa of the stomach, and helps to cure ulcers. If you want to cure ulcers, you need to drink the sherbet or you can consume the ripe pulp for three days.
Helps to control diabetes, cholesterol and uric acid
The leaves of wood apple have properties of methanol. This helps to decrease the cholesterol level, blood sugar level and blood urea level. You can consume the dry leaves of wood apple every day to get the right effect.
Have an anti microbial qualities
The leaves, roots and fruit pulp of wood apple contains eugenol and cuminaldehyde, which are popular for their microbial qualities. The extracts of wood apple can be used for treatment of bacterial as well as fungal infections.
As a treatment for tuberculosis
For treating the early onset of tuberculosis, wood apple has been used during early times. It anti microbial properties helps in the treatment of tuberculosis at its early stage. To get the right effect, consuming ripe wood apple pulp mixed with honey or brown sugar for a period of 40 days after dinner can bring in a lot of change.
Consuming Wood apple
You can scoop the ripe wood apple fruit with the help of a spoon and eat it straight away. You can also mix it with milk and sugar to make a wonderful milkshake. The pulp of the ripe fruit can be used for making jams. The real reason why most people eat wood apples is due to its medicinal value and the health benefit it provides and not for its taste.
