Can pregnant women eat winter melon?

In the summer, the weather is very hot, and for pregnant women, their own immune ability will be reduced. At this time, they are prone to heatstroke, loss of appetite and other discomforts. In addition, when eating during special periods, people are always very cautious. In fact, winter melon can be eaten in moderation during pregnancy. The following editor will introduce some benefits of winter melon for pregnant women.

Winter melon is mainly produced in summer. It is named winter melon because when the melon is ripe, there is a layer of white powdery substance on the surface, just like the white frost in winter. For this reason, winter melon is also called white melon.

Wax gourd belongs to the Cucurbitaceae family and is an annual herb. It is native to southern my country and India and is cultivated in all parts of my country, with the main supply season being summer and autumn.

It likes warmth and heat, has high yield, and is resistant to storage and transportation. It is one of the important vegetable varieties in summer and autumn.

Selection: When selecting, pinch it with your fingernails. The winter melons with hard skin, dense flesh, and mature seeds that have turned yellowish-brown taste better. Those with a slightly yellowish complexion are generally older and do not taste very good.

Nutritional value of winter melon

Winter melon includes flesh, pulp and seeds, and is rich in protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and other high nutrients. The nutritional components of winter melon from different origins vary slightly. Taking winter melon produced in Guangdong, China as an example, every 100g of fresh winter melon contains 0.3g of protein, 1.8g of carbohydrates, 0.9g of dietary fiber, 65mg of potassium, 0.2mg of sodium, 14mg of phosphorus, 5mg of magnesium, 0.1mg of iron, 27mg of ascorbic acid, 0.02mg of vitamin E, 0.01mg of riboflavin, 0.01mg of thiamine, and 0.2mg of niacin.

Studies have shown that wax gourd contains relatively high levels of ascorbic acid, thiamine, riboflavin and niacin. Wax gourd seeds are rich in vitamin B1, which has the effect of preventing and treating cancer. Wax gourd seeds also contain 8 mineral elements, including potassium, sodium, calcium, iron, zinc, copper, phosphorus and selenium. The potassium content is significantly higher than the sodium content. It is a typical high-potassium and low-sodium vegetable, which is very beneficial for patients with kidney disease, hypertension and edema who need to eat low-sodium food. The element selenium also has multiple functions such as anti-cancer. It contains 8 essential amino acids for the human body except tryptophan, with relatively high levels of glutamate and aspartic acid. It also contains ornithine and y-aminobutyric acid as well as histidine, which is specially needed by children. Wax gourd does not contain fat, and its dietary fiber is as high as 0.8%. It is rich in nutrients and has a reasonable structure. Calculation of the nutritional quality index shows that wax gourd is a high-quality food that is beneficial to health.

The efficacy and function of winter melon

Winter melon is cold in nature, and its flesh and pulp have diuretic, heat-clearing, phlegm-resolving and thirst-quenching effects. It can also treat edema, phlegm and asthma, summer heat, hemorrhoids and other symptoms. If you cook winter melon with the skin on and drink the soup, it can reduce swelling, promote diuresis, clear away heat and relieve summer heat. Winter melon also has excellent beauty and weight loss functions.

Winter melon is rich in copper, which is an indispensable trace nutrient for human health. It has an important influence on the development and function of blood, central nervous and immune systems, hair, skin and bone tissue, as well as internal organs such as the brain, liver and heart.

According to the traditional concept, women are not suitable to eat winter melon during the confinement period. They think that eating cooked winter melon will make women's bodies weaker. In addition, winter melon is cold in nature and will cause some discomfort to women. In fact, modern science believes that drinking some winter melon soup after delivery can help mothers lose weight and reduce swelling, and it can also help promote lactation.