Sweet Potato – A precious medicine that many people do not know
Oct
Sweet potatoes are a rustic, cheap, easy-to-find dish that is readily available in our country. Moreover, sweet potatoes are also a valuable medicine to treat many diseases.
1. What are the effects of sweet potatoes?
Sweet potatoes are grown in many tropical countries for their tubers to eat instead of rice. The tubers contain 24.6% starch, 4.17% glucose.
When fresh, they contain 1.3% protein, 0.1% fat, diattaza, ash with manganese, calcium, copper, vitamins A, B, C, 4.24% tannin, 1.375 pentozan.
When dried (in a cool place), sweet potatoes contain inozit, gum, dextrin, chlorogenic acid, phytosterol, carotin, adenine, betaine, choline.
According to Oriental medicine, sweet potato tubers and leaves are both sweet, neutral, non-toxic; have the effect of strengthening the spleen, benefiting the kidneys, laxative, anti-inflammatory, benefiting the liver and gallbladder, improving eyesight; treating constipation, hemorrhoids, diabetes, muscle and joint pain, children with indigestion…
According to the book Tue Tinh, sweet potatoes (cam thu) are both sweet, neutral, non-toxic; have the effect of benefiting labor, strengthening the spleen and kidneys; have the same effect as hoai son (tonifying the heart, nourishing the kidneys, nourishing the spleen and stomach, benefiting qi, strengthening tendons and bones).
2. Dishes and remedies with sweet potatoes
Mr. Nguyen Quang Duong – Head of Oncology Department, Tue Tinh Hospital introduces some dishes and remedies with sweet potatoes as follows:
– Laxative: Wash the sweet potato, peel it, grind it, add a little boiling water, stir well. Drink 1 bowl in the morning.
Effect: Treat constipation. Use for 3 – 7 days until constipation is gone.
Or use 100 – 150g of fresh leaves, boil and eat daily.
– Treat women with postpartum hemorrhage: 100 – 150g fresh sweet potato leaves, crush, add a little boiling water, squeeze the juice to drink to treat postpartum hemorrhage in women with heat in the uterus.
– Treat diabetes: 150g fresh sweet potato leaves, 50g squash. Wash the sweet potato leaves, peel the squash, cut into pieces. Cook soup and eat during the day.
– Sweet potato millet porridge: 60g sweet potato, 50g millet. Peel and slice sweet potato; remove the skin from millet; cook porridge. Eat for breakfast. Used for patients with diabetes and weak spleen and stomach.
– Sweet potato soup: Yellow sweet potato (golden potato) 100-150g. Wash them, slice them. Cook them into soup or add 50g of rice, cook porridge. Good for people with hepatitis, jaundice, and fever.
3. Notes when using sweet potatoes
People with kidney disease who eat a lot of sweet potatoes are more likely to get cardiovascular disease. The reason is that sweet potatoes contain a lot of fiber, vitamin A, especially potassium. When the kidneys are weak, the function of removing excess potassium is also limited, causing harmful effects such as heart rhythm disturbances, so patients with kidney failure should not eat…
People with digestive systems such as irritable bowel syndrome should not eat a lot of sweet potatoes because they can easily cause diarrhea.