Watermelon - Useful Properties, Application, Contraindications, Calorie Content

The ratio of BJU in the product

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Useful properties of watermelon

Watermelon contains vitamins B1, C, B2, pantothenic and folic acids, carotene, fructose and glucose, fiber, pectin.

It is especially useful to eat watermelon for kidney disease, because it has a diuretic effect and cleanses them well.

The following beneficial properties of watermelon are also known: relieving heat and inflammation, supporting immunity, stabilizing blood pressure, improving digestion, excreting bile, preventing anemia, atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular diseases, and the formation of tumors.

Application

The diuretic property of watermelon allows you to remove sand from the kidneys. To do this, you should consume two kilograms of berries for 4-5 days on an empty stomach every day, preferably in two doses.

Drinking watermelon regularly is useful for patients suffering from anemia, gout.

Watermelon contains a large amount of fiber, thanks to which it removes cholesterol, which for a healthy person is a good prevention of cardiovascular diseases

To relieve edema, during the treatment of cystitis, urolithiasis, nephritis, it is recommended to eat 2-2.5 kg of watermelon daily.

The beneficial properties of watermelon are also manifested when drinking its juice. It is drunk for diseases of the blood, kidneys, jaundice, cirrhosis of the liver, various poisoning, cholelithiasis. It is noticed that watermelon juice cleans the gallbladder well, as well as the pulp removes stones from the kidneys and excess fluid from the body. It is useful to drink watermelon juice for hypertensive patients and those suffering from joint pain. There are no special instructions on dosages and frequency of juice consumption, it is usually drunk throughout the day, between meals. A good result is obtained with watermelon juice mixed with a weak solution of vinegar and honey - this remedy is effective for cholelithiasis and jaundice.

The calorie content of watermelon, despite its sweet taste, is low - only 38 kcal per 100 g of pulp, so the berry is included in the complex treatment of obesity.

The property of watermelon to provide a feeling of satiety for a long time and the minimum calorie content of watermelon allow it to be used in diets. During the ripening season of watermelons, fasting days can be arranged, when only watermelon is eaten twice a week - 1.5-2kg per day. Considering that the pulp of one watermelon has an average caloric content of 500 kcal, such a diet will help to moderately reduce weight, clean the kidneys and intestines. For faster weight loss, you can try the watermelon diet for 3-4 days. During the diet, you can not eat anything other than watermelon, it is allowed to drink green tea, still mineral water. If you wish, you can eat a watermelon with two small slices of black bread, but nothing else can be eaten on these days, salt and sugar are excluded. Due to the low calorie content of watermelon, the active excretion of fluid, you can lose 3-4 kg during the diet.

Watermelon is also useful externally as vitamin masks for the skin. To do this, crushed watermelon pulp or cheesecloth moistened with its juice is applied on the face, neck for 15-20 minutes. After several procedures, a change in skin color is noted, it becomes softer, more elastic.

The beneficial properties of watermelon lie not only in its pulp and juice. For medicinal purposes, you can use its seeds and peels.

Watermelon seeds contain fatty oils, consisting of palmitic, linolenic and linoleic acids, and they are used for fever, cystitis, to stop uterine bleeding. It is believed that watermelon seeds are the same. like pumpkin seeds, they are effective against worms. To get rid of parasites, "milk" is prepared from seeds: crushed seeds should be ground in water or milk - in a ratio of 10: 1, insist 6-8 hours, and drink 50-100 mg one hour before meals - about 8 times a day.

Brewed dry watermelon rinds are taken for chronic, acute colitis in the ratio of 100 g of peels per half liter of water. They drink this tea 4-5 rubles / day for 0.5 cups.

Jam from watermelon peels helps to reduce gas formation in the intestines, relieves acute respiratory disease, angina pectoris, and poor digestion.

It is allowed to use watermelon for nursing mothers. Thanks to beneficial trace elements, it helps a woman cope with anemia, and the contained folic acid has a positive effect on the production of breast milk. But you can eat watermelon nursing no earlier than three months of breastfeeding, when it is allowed to weaken the strict postpartum diet and begin to gradually introduce additional foods. The condition for the first use of watermelon by nursing women: on this day, do not eat other products unfamiliar to the child. The interval between the use of new products should be 4-5 days, this is the only way to understand how this affected the health of the child.

Contraindications to the use of watermelon

One of the properties of watermelon, like other melons and gourds, is its ability to accumulate chemicals that are used to fertilize the soil, so it is better to buy watermelons from those who grow them in small quantities without the use of "chemicals" and from vendors you can trust. To understand if there are nitrates in a watermelon, it is enough to cut it and examine the pulp: if it has seals or yellow threads, it means that it can harm - cause diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, nausea. Such a watermelon is especially dangerous for nursing women, children and those who suffer from nephritis, pyelonephritis, nephrosis. For safety, it is better to buy watermelons not earlier than mid-August, pay attention to berries with a striped rather than monochromatic skin, do not take soft and lethargic watermelons.

Watermelon is contraindicated in patients with diabetes and those with a diseased spleen.

Due to the fact that the berry contains a lot of cellulose, which takes a long time to digest, it can cause fermentation, so it should be borne in mind that not the pulp, but the strained watermelon juice is useful for patients with typhus: the accumulation of gases provoked by the pulp can be dangerous for the damaged intestine.

The same property of watermelon can cause colic in newborns, which should be taken into account when breastfeeding and introducing watermelon into the mother's diet.

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