Water chestnuts have a sweet and crisp taste and are rich in nutrients. They contain protein, fat, crude fiber, carotene, vitamin B, vitamin C, iron, calcium, phosphorus and carbohydrates. It can be eaten raw, used for cooking, made into starch, and used as traditional Chinese medicine.

Water chestnuts also have the function of preventing acute infectious diseases. In spring, when measles and meningococcal meningitis are more likely to occur, water chestnuts are a good disease prevention food. Water chestnuts are cold food and have the good effect of clearing away heat and purging fire. It can not only clear away heat and promote fluid production, but also supplement nutrition. It is most suitable for patients with fever. It has the effects of cooling blood and detoxifying, diuresis, laxative and expectorant, eliminating food and swelling, regulating hemorrhoids or dysentery, bloody stools, metrorrhagia in women, yin deficiency and lung dryness, cough due to phlegm and heat, bad throat, lump accumulation, red eyes and nebula. It is best not to eat water chestnuts raw often. If you often eat raw water chestnuts, the ginger worms in them will enter the human body and attach to the intestinal mucosa, causing intestinal ulcers, diarrhea or facial swelling. In addition, water chestnuts are raw and cold foods, which are not suitable for people with spleen and kidney deficiency and blood stasis.