Do you like to cook? These two plants maybe have already familiar for people around the world with their benefits for cooking. Whether you like to cook or not, you must have ever heard about them even for once. Yes, they are lemongrass and pandan. Both of them are familiar with culinary, same as the health benefits of wild ginger.
So, let us get to know about the health benefits of lemongrass and pandan leaves!
LemongrassÂ
Lemongrass comes from the grass family which usually lives in tropical islands such as Australia, Asia, and Africa. Its genus is Cymbopogon and it has many species, one of them is Cymbopogon schoenanthus. In India, the plant is familiar to use as a medicinal herb, while in other Asian countries it is famous as a culinary herb. However, with its nutrition, the plant can also be used not only for culinary, just like the benefits of barley grass, wheatgrass, and alfafa.
What makes lemongrass so beneficial to be consumed? Let us find its contents first!
Nutritional Contents of Lemongrass
| Nutrition Facts | |
|---|---|
| For a Serving Size of 0.5 cups chopped raw (34g) | |
| Calories 35 | Calories from Fat 0 (0%) |
| % Daily Value * | |
| Total Fat 0g | – |
| Sodium 0mg | 0% |
| Potassium 240mg | – |
| Carbohydrates 8g | – |
| Net carbs 8g | – |
| Fiber 0g | 0% |
| Protein 1g | |
| Vitamins and minerals | |
| Vitamin A 0μg | 0% |
| Vitamin C 0mg | 0% |
| Calcium 20mg | 3% |
| Iron 1.2mg | 15% |
| Fatty acids | |
| Amino acids | |
| * The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs. | |
After you know what are the minerals contained in lemongrass, you might want to know its uses.
Health Benefits of Lemongrass
Based on many studies, lemongrass known to have many benefits for our body. What might be interesting is that we don’t realize consuming the plant every day since we usually always have the plant indirectly in our food. So, here are the health benefits of lemongrass:
1. Prevent Gastritis
If you have a high gastric acid on your stomach that can be the reason why you suffered from gastritis, you have to try drink lemongrass tea. The tea will give you feeling of relaxation and reducing the event of gastritis and the feeling of nausea that might happen to you.
2. Prevent High Blood Pressure
Lemongrass can help to low a high blood pressure since it contains potassium which can be used to promote diuresis and also smoothen the blood circulation. Drinking lemongrass tea regularly can help you to control your blood pressure.
3. Reduce Bad Cholesterol
Lemongrass has an anti-cholesterol character which makes it can reduce LDL or the bad cholesterol in the body. A low bad cholesterol level is good to prevent atherosclerosis.
4. Detoxification
You might feel like want to pee more frequently if you just consuming lemongrass. In fact, that is the way of the plant to help your body getting out the toxic in your body, similar to the health benefits of cherry blossom tea.
5. Antiseptic Character
Sometimes our stomach does not feel good because of the virus, bacteria, fungus, worm, and so other microorganisms. Consuming lemongrass will help your body to be healthy for all those things.
6. Treat Anemia
Anemia can cause by the lack of iron in the body. Treating anemia by consuming lemongrass that contains iron will be the best way other than consuming chemical medicine.Â
7. Treat Menstrual Pain for Women
Many people take the benefits of lemongrass to reducing menstrual pain and its effect on getting nausea.
8. Solve Respiratory Problems
Lemongrass can solve respiratory problems since it contains an essential oil which can provide a relaxation effect to the respiratory tract.
9. Prevent Cancer
The are many studies that proved lemongrass can prevent cancer by stopping the development of broken and damaged cell without broking the healthy cell. It is the citral substance which is known to be an anti-cancer substance.
10. Prevent Diabetes
The production of insulin is located in the pancreas. The more healthy a pancreas, the more it can lower the blood sugar level. And, you can clean your pancreas from fat and toxic by consuming lemongrass.
11. Treat Digestive Disorders
Asian people use lemongrass to treat many digestive disorders such as stomachache and to release gas from the stomach by making lemongrass juice or lemongrass tea. There are many other disorders of the digestion that can be treated by consuming lemongrass.
12. Keep Healthy and Beautiful Skin
The field of cosmetics has been using lemongrass as their material since it is proven to treating acne and freshen the face.
Pandan Leaves
We have already know that lemongrass has many benefits and that same goes for pandan leaves. The plant which has sweet and nice aroma comes from the Pandanus (screwpine) genus and one of the species is Pandanus amarylifolius. It is widely used in Asia as a flavoring for cooking materials, especially in South and Southeast Asia.
The use of pandan leaves may not be the main material since people only need its aroma on the food. But, what if they realize that the plant has many nutritional contents on it?
Nutritional Content of Pandan Leaves
| Nutrition Facts | |
|---|---|
| For a Serving Size of 1 Tbsp (20g) | |
| Calories 59 | Calories from Fat 9 (15.3%) |
| % Daily Value * | |
| Total Fat 1g | – |
| Saturated fat 1g | – |
| Sodium 19mg | 1% |
| Carbohydrates 12g | – |
| Net carbs 12g | – |
| Sugar 10g | – |
| Fiber 0g | 0% |
| Protein 0g | |
| Vitamins and minerals | |
| Vitamin A IU 0IU | – |
| Vitamin C 0mg | 0% |
| Calcium 0mg | 0% |
| Iron 0mg | 0% |
| Fatty acids | |
| Amino acids | |
| * The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs. | |
We have already know what contained in pandan leaves that is used to prove its benefits.Â
Health Benefits of Pandan Leaves
There are many benefits that we can get by consuming pandan leaves as a flavoring on our food and other uses such as:
1. Reduce Fever
In traditional use, people use pandan leaves to reducing fever by taking its extraction.
2. Relieve Flatulence and Indigestion
Many people use the extraction of pandan leaves to treat the digestive problem and some diseases like flatulence.
3. Use as Cardio-tonic
One of the local use that can we get from pandan leaves is that it can be used as cardio-tonic, by taking the health benefits of boiled pandan leaves.
Other health benefits of lemongrass and pandan leaves:
4. Treating Dandruff
5. Healing Stomach Cramp
6. Getting Back Your Appetite
7. Neutralize Toxin and Poison
God has provided us everything in this world with its own benefits. It is our choice to take it or not. You can also try to use the health benefits of drinking red rose tea. We hope this article to be useful for you. Be healthy and happy.