Eat Them All --- The Marvellous Lotus
Probably the most versatile herb in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), every part of lotuses (water lily) is edible, extremely nourishing and delicious with medical value! Isn't that lovely?
To begin with, let's take a close look at its anatomy. In general, parts of a lotus plant that can be used in TCM include:
- Leaf (He Ye). Lotus Leaf relieves summer heat and dampness with fever, irritability, excessive sweating, scanty urine, diarrhea, spleen yang deficiency, stagnation
- Fruit --- can be further broken down into:
- Lotus Seed Pod (Lian Peng). Lotus Seed Pod has a heat-clearing effect, or soak in water as a tea, which is good for detoxification and beauty, prevention for diabetes.
- Lotus Seed (Hu Lian Zi). Lotus seed strengthens spleen & tonifies kidney, relieves diarrhea, nourishes heart and tranquilizes mind. Used to treat nocturnal emission, enuresis, leucorrhagia, palpitation, vexation, insomnia, dreaminess and tinnitus. Relieves soreness and weakness of the back and lower extremities.
- Lotus Plumule (Lian Zi Xin). Lotus Plumule clears heart-fire, secure essence, calms spirit.
For those young lotus seeds that are just popped out from the pod, they can be just consumed raw right away (of course with the thin and soft skin peeled off). They taste refreshing and sweet. However, you may discard the plumule since the bitterness may compromise the sweetness. When those seeds mature and get sun dried naturally, they can be put into congee or soup.
As for the lotus leaves, they can simply be used as the rice wrapper, which adds the subtle fragrance when steamed altogether. The best part is that they are also environmentally friendly since they are 100% biodegradable.
by Jingzi 2024-04-30