By Dr. Sirisha Potluri:
Bitter melon is a tropical plant that is widely cultivated in Asia, India, East Africa, and South America for its intensely bitter fruits that are commonly used in cooking and as a natural remedy for treating diabetes!
It has significant antidiabetic as well as hypolipidemic activity so that it can be used as an adjuvant along with allopathic treatment of medicine to treat diabetes as well as to delay the late complications of diabetes.
Medicinal value of bitter melon has been attributed to its high antioxidant properties due in part to phenols, flavonoids, isoflavones, terpenes, anthroquinones, and glucosinolates, all of which confer a bitter taste!
It is recommend eating the fruit itself, not the extract or juice. For example, there is a published report of a man who started throwing up blood after chugging two cups of bitter melon juice, which apparently ate through the wall of his stomach.
quick recipe in the comments
checkblog #checkbioforlink adding links to other bitter melon recipes on the blog too!
Ingredients:
Bitter melon -6-8
Turmeric, red chili powder 1 table spoon each and salt according to taste.
Juice of 2-3 lemons or limes
One cup each of Channa dal, urad dal, peanuts, coriander seeds,sesame seeds!
2 table spoons cumin seeds
10-15 garlic cloves
1 cup of curry leaves
20-25 dry red chili
Few ribs of tamarind.
Blender to make a coarse powder.
Procedure:
Wash bitter melon and cut the ends! Slice them into circles and add turmeric, red chili powder and lemon juice and mix well.
Air fry these pieces at 350F for 15 minutes, checking in between. Don’t let the pieces become too dry!
Preparing spice powder!
Dry roast all the ingredients in a thick bottom pan in the order of, Channa dal, peanuts, urad dal, cilantro seeds( dhaniya) dry red chilli, add cumin seeds, curry leaves sesame seeds, garlic and tamarind ribs in the last! This process has to be done patiently with stove on a medium flame.
Once all these spices cool down make a powder, not too smooth.
Mix the powder and air fried bitter melon pieces and enjoy in rice, quinoa, Dosa or idly.
We can sauté some onions and mix too!
We can make the spice powder and store it in the refrigerator and use it in other vegetable stir frys, like okra, eggplant, tindora etc!