Juicy, sweet watermelons at the end of summer become a favorite treat for the whole family. They are incredibly useful, but for certain reasons we are afraid to buy them. How to protect yourself from this? Read on. This watery treat is an annual herb of the genus Watermelon of the Pumpkin family. Its fruit - pumpkin - can be oval, spherical, cylindrical or flattened. The bark is colored white, yellow and dark green, stripes and spots are present. The sweet pulp is red, pink, crimson, rarely yellow and pearl.
The seeds can be different depending on their shape, color and size. More often you can find reddish-brown, black, white and yellow, less often - greenish. However, there are seedless watermelons - the so-called triploid hybrids. When growing them, special methods of pollination of "female" and "male" plants are used. This is how a generation of fruits is derived, which does not subsequently give offspring. Seedless watermelons can be obtained by the method of colchicization. In fact, there are seeds in them and they are suitable for consumption, since they are soft and small.
Read about the beneficial properties of watermelon seeds
It also happens the other way around - varieties of watermelons with an increased amount of seeds are specially grown, as, for example, in China, where they like to fry and serve them as a separate dish.
In terms of structure, pumpkin is similar to a berry, which is why it is believed that a watermelon is a large berry. In Belarusian and Ukrainian it is called "kavun", while the word "watermelon" comes from the Kypchak arbuz. The homeland is the South African countries - Lesotho, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, where the plant is still found in the wild.
Initially in Russia, this culture appeared on the Lower Volga. At the moment, it is most of all in the countries of America, China, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. There are such species, the thickness of the bark of which is only 0.5 cm. Thick-baked watermelons up to 4 cm thick - they are stored longer. To store the watermelon until deep winter, choose a thick-bore variety and hang it in a mesh bag with large holes in the basement. So it can hang without problems until January.
Watermelon varieties
The most widespread are 2 varieties of watermelon - Colocynth and Watermelon ordinary. The flesh of the first of them can be red, yellow, white or pink, it has a very sweet and juicy taste.
Colocynth is known by the names "Vine of Sodom", "Bitter Cucumber" or "Bitter Apple". It is cultivated in semi-deserts and steppes of North African countries, on the Arabian Peninsula, the Mediterranean coast, in Iran and some regions of India and Pakistan. Ripe peel of Colocynth acquires a straw-yellow color. The inside of the fruit is white flesh with many hard yellow seeds, bitter in taste. The harvested ripe watermelons are used as raw materials: they are peeled with a knife from the yellowish peel and dried. When dried, they are very light, with a diameter of 5 to 8 cm. The seeds contain a lot of fatty oil. Pulp of colocynth fruits contains resins, glycosides, pectins, proteins and other useful substances.
Watermelon Colocynth has a strong laxative effect due to the presence of glycosides in it. Fruit extract or powder is used as a liver stimulant. An overdose of this type of fruit leads to negative consequences, which will be discussed in the "harm".
Colocynth grows wild in Israel. There it is compared to the "wild pumpkin" that is mentioned in the historical books of the Old Testament.
Bitter seeds of Colocynth have a nutty flavor, they contain proteins and fats. Most often they are used for the production of oil due to their high fat content (from 17 to 19%).
Photo by verbalsnuf Do not be surprised if you see square watermelons - they are the same in composition and taste, the only thing that distinguishes them is their shape, so they are very convenient to transport. Square watermelons are less likely to break from falls, more of them are placed in the refrigerator, and such a "curiosity" is grown without any chemicals at all. They first appeared in China. They grow like ordinary round ones, but as the fruit grows, it should be placed in a square box (20x20) with good ventilation. The boxes are covered with black paint to catch the sun's rays and covered with a lid. The best melon watermelons are Astrakhan (white Bykovsky), Monastyrsky (green with white stripes with gray or red seeds), Kherson, Kamyshinsky, Mozdoksky, Uryupinsky, etc. Some varieties are salted like cucumbers, while others are used to obtain honey (bekmes, nardek) - by cooking and thickening the juicy pulp.
Video about varieties - yellow watermelon:
Interesting Watermelon Facts:
Igor Likhosenko, a farmer in Temryuk district, managed to grow the largest watermelon weighing 61.4 kg in 2009, which beat all indicators in Europe. However, the world record belongs to the variety "Carolina Cross" - the weight of one such fruit is about 122 kg.
Interestingly, the bottom of the berry indicates its gender: "girls" have a flatter and wider circle than "boys", they are sweeter and contain fewer seeds.
Watermelon composition: vitamins and calories
95% of watermelon pulp is water. 100 g of pulp contains vitamins, minerals, fiber, water, pectin, organic acids, ash. Of the vitamins, there is a lot of folic acid or vitamin B9 (8 μg), ascorbic acid (7 μg), provitamin A, B1, B2. Most of the macronutrients are magnesium (224 μg), potassium (64 mg), phosphorus, sodium, calcium. Among the trace elements you can find iodine, cobalt, manganese, fluorine, zinc, copper. A high iron content was recorded - 1000 μg.
Watermelon seeds contain linoleic, palmitic and linolenic acids. It is noteworthy that in terms of taste, watermelon seed oil can replace Provence oil, and in terms of physical and chemical characteristics - almond oil. Sugar in some varieties reaches up to 11%.
Calorie content of watermelon
per 100 g - 25 kcal:
- Proteins - 0.6 g
- Fat - 0.1 g
- Carbohydrates - 5.8 g
Useful properties of watermelon
Drinking watermelon has tremendous health benefits. Juice and pulp have choleretic and diuretic properties. The pulp contains folic acid, which is invaluable for women's health.
Scientists have found that long-term consumption of fiber can heal even chronic gastritis. Therefore, with increased acidity, treatment is carried out with a watermelon diet (eaten with bread). In addition to a therapeutic diet, due to the permissible calorie content, there are also watermelon diets for weight loss.
No wonder these fruits are recommended for arthritis, atherosclerosis, gout, since they are able to remove harmful cholesterol from the body. They help with Botkin's disease, diseases of the gallbladder and liver, hypertension, anemia, heart defects, obesity, nosebleeds. With obesity, it is useful to eat pulp every day for two to three kilograms - it is safe for the figure due to its low calorie content. During the harvest period, in order to eliminate excess weight, it is advisable to arrange fasting days for yourself, eating 3 kg of watermelon per day, of course, in the absence of contraindications for this.
Thus, regular consumption of watermelon - no matter what kind - cleanses the kidneys from the finest sand and pebbles, improves the functioning of the digestive system and relieves many other ailments. The beneficial properties of watermelon, in addition to a positive effect on the body, also have a tremendous effect on the beauty of the face and body. We use dry / fresh pulp and crusts, from which a healing tea is obtained. They are finely chopped and poured with boiling water (200 ml) in the amount of 1-2 teaspoons. The resulting drink has rejuvenating properties: it gives the skin firmness, elasticity, and improves complexion.
Cooking applications
The crusts are good not only as a base for a drink, but also for making candied fruits. For this purpose, watermelons are cleaned of pulp, the crusts are cut into cubes, then boiled in plain water to soften. After that, the cubes are dipped in sweet syrup (one and a half kg of sugar per 800 ml of water), left overnight, and in the morning they are boiled for 10 minutes. After a short infusion, boil again and add a little vanillin and citric acid at the end. Put the crusts on a tray, drain the syrup and cover with sugar, then stir and dry in the oven.
They also make watermelon jam, or rather its rind, with the addition of sugar, vanilla, chalk cardamom and soda. The most popular drink is "Cruchon" (watermelon, dry white wine, white semi-sweet wine, cognac, fruit liqueur, peaches, apples, black grapes, sugar), as well as the "Gin Fizz" watermelon cocktail (watermelon juice, syrup, lime or lemon fresh, gin, mint, lime).
Video about the benefits of the largest berry:
Harm and contraindications of watermelon
A cautious attitude towards buying a watermelon is quite justified. Despite the beneficial properties of watermelon and nutrients, harmful waste products of the modern world have had a very negative impact on the quality of the fruit. It is no secret that to accelerate their growth, they are "pumped" with nitrates, which causes massive poisoning, often a person experiences irritability, insomnia, weakness, dizziness. To tell "by eye" where is "clean", and where a poisonous watermelon, unfortunately, is impossible - only laboratory analysis will help. Microbes developing due to non-observance of banal rules during cultivation, storage and transportation are no less dangerous. Speaking of Colocynth, it is worth noting that with an overdose of it, acute painful sensations appear in the intestines with further inflammation.
Attention! Watermelon is contraindicated for diarrhea and colitis, impaired urine outflow, chronic bowel diseases, diabetes, as well as people with large stones in the body (renal colic may occur) and women in the last trimester of pregnancy.
How to choose the right watermelon and eat it?
To minimize the negative consequences of consuming a low-quality product, we advise you to adhere to several safety measures:
- Down with cracked or cut watermelons! Do not buy store-bought ones, cut into slices and neatly wrapped in foil!
- Before you cut the "big berry", be sure to wash it with running water and soap!
- Early fruits are the most dangerous because they are "stuffed" with nitrates. To check this fact, squeeze them - if they do not crack, then it means that they were grown in an unnatural way. When tapped, ripe watermelons sound clear and sonorous. The crust should not be pierced with a fingernail, but should be hard and shiny. A few more signs of maturity are bright contrasting stripes, a dry tail. If a ripe watermelon is placed entirely in water, it should float. Having bought an early fruit, try placing a piece of pulp in a transparent container with water - if it turns pinkish-red, the product is nitrate.
- It is best to buy watermelons in season, which starts around August 15th. Choose medium-sized fruits, 6-7 kg, rather than very large or small ones. As a rule, small ones are often unripe, and large ones can be exposed to nitrates, although not often and only before the beginning of the season, since in the midst of weather conditions it is also not entirely profitable to “stuff” them with chemistry.
Video: how to choose a nitrate-free watermelon:
