Description of the fruit of Buddhist monks. Calorie content and useful properties of monk fruit. Who shouldn't eat sweet fruits. Recipes and drinks from the Chinese endemic, interesting facts. It is enough to moisten your lips with fresh monk fruit juice after heatstroke, and you can continue to be active. The drink quenches thirst and quickly restores water and electrolyte balance. If patients constantly have a subfebrile temperature, then regular introduction of monk fruit into the diet will help stabilize the condition.
Traditional healers with its help relieve patients from alcohol or drug addiction, addiction to smoking and, which is very important, eliminate the symptoms that cause the rejection of these destructive habits.
Contraindications and harm of the monk
No contraindications to the use of Lo Han Guo have been identified. However, there is a category of people for whom the harm of monkhat outweighs the benefits of introducing it into the diet. These are diabetics, regardless of the form of the disease, pregnant women, especially in the third trimester, in order to avoid the development of gestosis, pregnancy diabetes. The pulp of the fruit is 300 times sweeter than sugar. Although it is believed that its use does not increase blood sugar levels, it should be borne in mind that the experiment has so far been carried out only on mice. The possible development of individual intolerance should also be taken into account. Allergy to monk fruit is very rare, though.
If you are offered to buy fresh Lo Han Guo, then you need to categorically refuse. The fruits are stored, even in the refrigerator, for no more than a week, and during fermentation they begin to taste bitter and acquire a rotten taste. Such a product can be poisoned.
How Buddhist Monks Eat Fruit
The fruits can be purchased dried or dried. They are brought to Chinese shops immediately after the harvest and brought to full readiness in special ovens. This helps to get rid of the unpleasant tart odor and bitterness, which gradually increases with improper storage.
Arhat is eaten like a regular pumpkin in its raw form, but this method is available only to those who collect or grow fruits. All the rest use a jerky or dried product as a sweetener for soups and drinks, a base for sports nutrition, and add to alcoholic beverages. But the real momordica mash is very expensive - the monks carefully keep the secrets of making. The peasants, on the other hand, distill the fruits of the lianas, which have already begun to deteriorate, into moonshine.
Monk fruit recipes
From fresh sweet momordica, you can cook absolutely the same dishes as from ordinary pumpkin, only you should carefully cut off the thin shell. It is bitter.
Monk fruit recipes for delicious dishes:
- Dessert … The fruits are peeled, seeds removed, cut into pieces and placed in a saucepan. You don't need to add sugar. Pour the zest from one lemon so that the dessert does not turn out sugary, mix everything well. If the monk fruit is not very fresh, you will have to use sugar - this is necessary to stimulate juice production. Leave the container with the workpiece for 3-4 hours. Boil the syrup until thick, leave to cool. Then they take out each piece, let it dry in a colander so that excess syrup can drain. Dip each bite in crushed walnuts and powdered sugar. Add cream before serving.
- Dried monk fruit … At home, Luo Han Guo can be dried in several ways. Summer: cut into thin slices and hung under a hood or in a draft, in a dark place. If there is an electric dryer, then first the slices are boiled for 2-3 minutes, then they are thrown in a colander so that water is glass, laid out in an electric dryer. The temperature is set at 55-60 ° C. Drying time in the oven is extended to 9 hours. Preparation is like in an electric dryer. 6 hours are kept at the specified temperature in an oven with a slightly open damper, then 2-3 hours at 80 ° C.
- Sweet chips … Large pieces of monk fruit are placed on a baking sheet in an oven preheated to 170 ° C for 25 minutes. Then the "melted" pulp is transferred to pallets in an electric dryer, set the mode - 55 ° C, and stand for 16 hours. Ready-made chips can be eaten as they are or ground into powder and added as a sweetener. Store in a dry, tightly sealed glass container.
- Dried monk fruit … The seeds are removed from the fruit, peeled, cut into slices. Sprinkle with sugar, despite the fact that the pulp is sweet, it will not be possible to extract juice without sugar. After 14-15 hours, the syrup is drained, boiled, the Lo Han Guo slices are laid out in a pan, poured over with boiling syrup, kept at 85 ° C for 8-10 minutes. Then the syrup is drained, and the pan is put back in the oven for half an hour. Reduce the temperature to 65 ° C, leave for 40 minutes. Then the pieces are thrown back into a metal colander to drain excess liquid. After another hour, the electric dryer mode is set at 30 ° C and left for several days. Readiness is determined by taste. In hot climates, the slices are dried at room temperature, leaving in a colander.
- Quick side dish … Cut 600 g of monk fruit pulp into small pieces and chop a large onion. Fried in olive oil. Tomatoes are sautéed - 400 g, peeled, finely chopped and added to the pan. Fry for 15 minutes, seasoning with sea salt, basil, crushed garlic, a mixture of peppers and Provencal herbs. The taste will be sweetish. Pieces of monk fruit are dipped in boiling salty water for 6-7 minutes, then put in a colander to dry a little, season with olive or butter and sprinkle with grated cheese.
When preparing any desserts with dried monk fruit powder, you can substitute sugar. In this case, you need to use 2-2.5 times less sweetener than indicated in the recipe. When cooking curd casseroles and curd cakes, the sweetener rate is reduced by 1/3. Curd will neutralize the sweetness of Lo Han Guo. Tea can be brewed from dried vine leaves, dried pulp and ripe fruits. To prepare a delicious drink, the pumpkin head is placed in a linen bag, smashed with a hammer so that the pulp and seeds are mixed, and then dipped in boiling water. Boil for 30-40 minutes.
Another method of brewing from Lo Han Guo: the whole fruit is poured with boiling water - 1 liter, several holes are pierced in the softened peel, covered with a lid, insulated, left for an hour, decanted water, tasted. As soon as the desired sweetness is obtained and the sugaryness disappears, it is diluted with hot milk.
The cough drink is at the same time a tonic, restores strength after exercise. The ripe fruit is cut into thin slices, all seeds are removed, dried in the oven at 60 ° C, opening the oven slightly. Then it is crushed into powder, which is brewed, having previously placed in a bag of gauze. Insist 2-3 hours. The fortress is determined according to your own taste.
You can determine if the drinks were brewed correctly. If everything is done properly, it is caramel. If overexposed on fire, then a bitterness will appear. In this case, the medicinal properties are not lost, but you will have to add sugar or honey. Bitter drinks are unpleasant to consume, and dry mouth occurs as a side effect.
Interesting facts about Lo Han Guo
Arhat is considered the fruit of Buddhist monks and got its name precisely because of its growth in the area where there are still many Buddhist temples. This is what the monks who have attained enlightenment are called.
The first mentions date back to the 13th century. However, for food purposes, the fruits were used to a limited extent - the plant was grown in the provinces of Hainan, Hunan, Guizhou and Jiangxi, along the slopes of the Guangdong and Guangxi mountains. Because of this, difficulties arose in the use of healing liana in folk medicine, however, it is described in a Chinese herbalist.
The monks believed that if you regularly eat an arhat, you can live for more than 100 years. That is why the fetus was introduced only into the diet of the elite.
The Europeans were introduced to sweet fruits in 1938. First, according to the description of the Chinese scientists, Hoh Hin Chung, and the Englishman Professor Groff. At the same time, the seeds were brought to the United States, where they began to actively cultivate them. The first studies are attributed to the Chinese scientists Tsunematzu and S. H. Li. Currently, the study continues, extracts with healing properties are extracted from the fruits.
The calorie content of extracts, which are subsequently introduced into sports nutrition, is 2, 3 kcal. The fruits of a plant planted on a windowsill retain all the beneficial properties, although they resemble large grapes in size. Liana is capricious. In order for it to germinate, it is necessary to provide temperature drops: + 20-22 ° С during the day and + 8-12 ° С at night. Watering should be done frequently, but water should not be stagnant. The soil should be constantly moist, regular feeding with humus.
The seeds are first soaked for 3-4 days, the water is changed regularly. Then it is added dropwise into moist soil. You should not be upset if the seed does not germinate within 2-3 months. This process sometimes takes up to 7-9 months. All this time, the surface of the peat pot is covered with a film.
The effort pays off. About 3-4 kg of fruit can be removed from one liana. For those who are losing weight, a generous harvest is a valuable treasure. By consuming dried pulp instead of sugar, you can get rid of 3-5 kg of weight within a month. A year of such a diet - and you can forget about excess weight forever.
However, when making a homemade sweetener, you will have to come to terms with a not very pleasant smell. If such a product went on sale, there would hardly be anyone willing to buy it.
Procter & Gamble patented a process for making a sweetener in 1995. Arhat is harvested greenish, and processing begins at the time of final ripening. This semi-finished product can be used not only as a fruit concentrate, but also as a raw material for baby puree. What does a monk look like - watch the video:
