Most of what I write is technology related so a piece on a bitter gourd and a spice stick needs an explanation. Here it is.
Bitter melon is a member of the cucumber family, it’s a climbing vine and it’s generally used in the home for cooking and as an active ingredient to bring down blood sugar. It’s a good source of vitamins and a great veg to cook at home. Cinnamon of course is a spice we use in the home to cook all sorts of things and it has a number of health benefits. As a technical person I’ve always been focused on the technical content (blogs, articles etc). Today I’m going to do something different in Unique. A health priority that really needs to be addressed is how we can actually change our lives through these herbal plans, these vegetable dishes and the dishes we cook at home. In our own home we have literally got loads of bitter melon vines and we pass some on to the people in our latest society (the people of Post) as they grow in our yard. A lot of people don’t appreciate that herbal plants and vegetables can actually change your life. They’re always looking for the ‘taste’ of the junk food that’s out there, the fried food in particular is very rare. I’m absolutely against that, I’m totally against it, I’d never eat it and I’d only ever have it as a cheat meal once a month.
That’s the motivation. What follows is the actual, verifiable bit: what each format is, what it can actually do and what you should be looking at prior to going and buying or cooking it.
What these two can and can’t do
Neither bitter melon nor cinnamon have been shown to enhance immunity or prevent disease. The only area in which there is any research at all is with respect to blood sugar and in that area the evidence is extremely weak. A Cochrane review on bitter melon for type 2 diabetes concluded that the trials were too small and too poorly designed to make any recommendation whatsoever. The cinnamon research is inconclusive.
A high veggie diet with less of the junk and fried food is good for you. That’s the simple truth of the statement really, it’s good because it’s replacing something else.
The “natural means harmless” myth
Both ingredients have their own real down sides.
- Bitter melon can lower blood sugar. If used in conjunction with insulin or diabetes medication it can quite frankly bring levels too low.
- Bitter melon is generally avoided in pregnancy. Those with G6PD deficiency should avoid it (particularly the seeds) as it can cause a favism-like reaction.
- Most supermarket cinnamon is cassia and that contains a hell of a lot more coumarin than Ceylon. The European limit for tolerable coumarin intake is 0.1mg per kg of body weight per day and a teaspoon of cassia powder can easily use up the whole allowance for the average adult.
A teaspoon of cassia a day is more than most adults would be recommended to take on a regular basis. Whatever you do add to your food, continue to take whatever your doctor has prescribed and let them know what you’ve added.
Five formats, compared on things you can check
- Fresh bitter melon: look for firm bright green skin (yellow/orange means overripe). You control the salt, the oil and the cooking time and the cost is the bitterness.
- Bitter melon powder: ensure the label states the part of the plant (fruit, seed or whole), the country of origin and a batch number. It should also have the licence number of your local food authority (in India this would be an FSSAI number). There is no established dose.
- Bitter melon tincture (a liquid extract made by soaking the fruit in alcohol and water to be taken in drops) – whatever brand you’re looking at you need to check the alcohol content, the extraction ratio (e.g. 1:2, 1:5) and the number of drops per day on the label. Not for anyone who’s got an alcohol aversion.
- Cinnamon sticks: Ceylon is thin, tan, papery and layered and crumbles easily. Cassia is thick, hard, dark reddish-brown and comes as a single piece. The sticks hold their aroma a lot longer than the powder.
- Ground cinnamon you can’t tell the type of by just looking at it. If it doesn’t say Ceylon on the label then it’s cassia. Buy small packs as the aroma will go within a year.
What a bad bitter melon dish looks like
Thick rounds with the seed and white pith still in them, no salting at all, just a few minutes in the pan to get the bitterness out of it (it’s still very much there), then a lot of oil to cover it. Or deep fried until it’s a chip which is absolutely loaded with oil. Nobody at the table is asking for seconds and I suppose that’s perfectly fair.
Scraping out the pith, salting and squeezing or blanching in boiling water are the standard methods of mellowing it. The blanching time is the parameter that controls this dish; too short and it’s still quite sharp, too long and it collapses.
At home I said to my wife “Right, just cook a bitter melon vegetable dish today”. She just smiles and laughs. If I cook it for you then you have to finish the whole dish, because I won’t eat it, it’s just too bitter. I don’t like it. I’ll always just get my darling wife to go along with the idea that if you eat these natural vegetable dishes you’ll get rid of the disease and your immunity will be enhanced. She’s had a baby very recently so that’s why I’ve been so keen to provide her with all these good natural herbal ingredients, good vegetable dishes etc. That’s the story of every home really. As soon as the subject of bitter melon comes up, no one is in the mood to eat it.
But let me be absolutely clear, if you know a better way of cooking it and of getting rid of the bitterness then you can even boil it in hot water. You then fill it with the other vegetables, shallow fry it (don’t deep fry it) in a pan and serve it hot with the unleavened flatbread. In the tech world I’m absolutely serious about health priorities. What should we eat for a healthy lifestyle? That’s the rule we should all live by. I’ll just say it’s everywhere in the market. There’s all sorts of bitter melon available to you, bitter melon powder and bitter melon tincture for example if you don’t want to eat it as a vegetable. The powder is made in the factory from bitter melon via various extraction processes. You need to make sure that the product you’re looking at is approved by your local government food authority in terms of health. On the health front there should be no compromise.
Whatever the filling, finish it in a pan with a spoonful of oil rather than in a deep fryer and serve it hot with roti.
Where I land
Having looked at all five, that’s the one I’d go for.
You can quite easily see which one I’m going to pick. It’s definitely the fresh bitter melon and of course you make it using your brilliant recipe (you can find it on YouTube or one that a professional chef would recommend). Make it at home, enjoy it with the family and you’re well on your way to healthier eating.
Whichever one you go for, the food authority check and a chat with your doctor come prior to the first spoonful.
