Friday, January 6, 2012

The mighty carrot



Carrots are an excellent restorative food if you are feeling run down or convalescing, and for correcting nutritional deficiency, such as anaemia, and keeping tooth decay at bay. Highly nutritious, carrots are rich in vitamins A, B, and C, Beta-carotene, and in iron, calcium, potassium, and sodium.

Carrots have long been associated with sharp eyesight, but are also famed for regulating intestinal activity and relieving constipation and diarrhoea. Carrots stimulate the appetite and can relieve wind, colic, intestinal infections, peptic ulcers, and hemorrhoids.

A carrot juice fast for one or two days is a great detoxifying therapy for the liver. Carrots’ diuretic effect relieves fluid retention and soothes cystitis. They help counter the formation of kidney stones, and relieve arthritis and gout.

Their expectorant properties help expel mucus from the chest in coughs, bronchitis, and asthma, while the antiseptic effect helps resolve infections. Research has confirmed carrots’ folk use as a circulatory remedy, protecting against arterial and heart disease, preventing hardening of the arteries, an increasing haemoglobin and red blood cell counts. Eating two or three carrots, a day can lower blood cholesterol by more than 10 per cent. Beta-carotene has been shown to inhibit cancer, particularly that related to smoking, and the antioxidants hep to slow ageing.

You can use grated raw carrot in a poultice, as an antiseptic, and to speed healing of wounds, varicose ulcers, burns, whitlows, boils, abscesses, and styes. Carrot broth can heal chilblains and chapped skin, sooth itching from eczema, and treat impetigo and cold sores.

Here is a quick carrot soup recipe:

Boil 0.5 kg (1 lb.) of fresh carrots in 1 litre (1.75 pints) water until soft, and then blend.


No comments:

Post a Comment