Taboos about loofah

After a period of processing, loofah can be used as a Chinese medicinal material. This can achieve a good disinfection and analgesic effect, and can also detoxify. However, it must be noted that if you are a patient with frequent diarrhea, it is best not to eat it too much, because it is a cold Chinese medicinal material in itself. If patients with weak spleen and stomach often eat it, their symptoms will worsen.

Qiancenglou is the vascular bundle of the mature fruit of the Cucurbitaceae plant Luffa or Cantonese Luffa. It is also known as Tianluo tendons (Pulse Causes and Treatments), luffa net (Medical Collection Essentials·Medical Properties), luffa shell (Classification of Herbal Properties), melon net, luffa pulp (Flora of Guangzhou), Tianluo line (Compilation of Medicinal Materials), luffa tendons (Jiangsu Plant Medicinal Materials), luffa pulp (Hebei Medicinal Materials), Qiancenglou (Hunan Pharmacopoeia), and luffa cloth (Common Chinese Herbal Medicines in Sichuan). The original plant Cantonese loofah is also known as: angular loofah. It has the effects of promoting blood circulation, detoxifying and reducing swelling.

The skin of loofah should be peeled when eaten. It can be eaten cold, stir-fried, roasted, made into soup, or squeezed into juice for dietotherapy. Wash and slice the loofah, blanch it in boiling water, then mix it with sesame oil, soy sauce, vinegar, etc. to make cold loofah. When cooking loofah, it is rich in juice and should be cut and cooked immediately to avoid loss of nutrients. In addition, use less oil and cook with thin starch to retain its tender and refreshing characteristics.

Suitable for the crowd:

Loofah is edible for most people.

People with irregular menstruation, physical fatigue, phlegm, cough, and postpartum milk obstruction are suitable to eat more loofah.

People with weak constitution, internal cold and diarrhea should not eat too much.

Medicinal

Root (Luffa root): sweet, neutral. Promote blood circulation, dredge meridians, and reduce swelling. Used for runny nose. Vine (Luffa vine): sweet, flat. Open up meridians, relieve cough and reduce phlegm. Used for low back pain, cough, runny nose, and cough. Leaves (loofah leaves): bitter, sour, and cool. Stop bleeding, resolve phlegm and relieve cough, clear away heat and detoxify. Used for sudden cough, cough, summer heat and thirst, traumatic bleeding, scabies, pemphigus, and prickly heat. Fruit vascular bundle (loofah): sweet, flat.

Clears away heat and detoxifies, promotes blood circulation and dredges the meridians, and is diuretic and reduces swelling. Used for muscle and bone pain, chest and flank pain, amenorrhea, milk stagnation, mastitis, and edema. Fruit stalk: used for children's smallpox and sore throat. Peel: used for wounds, furuncles, and buttock sores. Seeds (loofah seeds): slightly sweet, neutral. Clears away heat and resolves phlegm, moisturizes dryness, and expels parasites. Used for cough with sputum, deworming and constipation. [8]