Bitter melon can be eaten raw, but not everyone is suitable for eating it.

Not suitable for everyone. Bitter melon is bitter in taste and cold in nature. Eating more of it can irritate the gastrointestinal tract. Especially for people with poor physical fitness, cold tolerance, and spleen and stomach deficiency, eating a large amount of bitter melon may aggravate the condition, causing stomach pain, abdominal pain, and even diarrhea. Women are best not to eat too much bitter melon during menstruation, especially those with cold dysmenorrhea, because eating too much may cause qi and blood to stagnate due to coldness, affecting smooth menstruation. Children's gastrointestinal function is weak, and long-term consumption of large amounts of bitter melon will affect their appetite.

If you can blanch it before cooking, it will help remove oxalic acid. Bitter melon has a high oxalic acid content, which is an important reason for its astringent taste. Blanching and then cooking will help remove the astringency and the taste will be much better.

Extended information:

Nutritional value:

Heat-clearing and detoxifying: Bitter melon can relieve heat in the heart and eliminate toxins in the body. The best way to eat bitter melon is cold salad. Cold cooking can well retain the vitamins contained in bitter melon. If stir-frying is used, a large amount of these vitamins will be lost during the stir-frying process, and the oil content after stir-frying is relatively high. People will consume more oil after eating, and it will not have the effect of cooling and reducing fire.

Beauty and rejuvenation: Regular consumption of bitter melon can enhance the vitality of the cortex and make the skin tender and toned. Using fresh bitter melon to make juice or decoct it into soup is a good supplement for dietary therapy against liver fire, red eyes, epigastric pain, and damp-heat dysentery. Fresh bitter melon, mashed and applied externally, can treat carbuncles and boils. In summer, children are prone to prickly heat. Try cutting the bitter melon into slices. Rubbing the prickly heat on your body can help you recover quickly; boiling bitter melon in water or making it as a delicacy can dissipate heat and relieve heat.

Lower blood sugar: Clam and bitter melon soup is a top-quality product for lowering blood sugar. Bitter melon crude extract contains insulin-like substances and has obvious hypoglycemic effects. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that bitter melon has a sweet, bitter and cold taste and can clear away heat, relieve restlessness and quench thirst; clam meat is sweet, salty and cold, can clear away heat and nourish yin, quench thirst and diuresis. The combination of the two can clear away heat and nourish yin, and is suitable for people with diabetes who have stomach yin deficiency and heat.

Nourishes blood and liver: Bitter melon tastes bitter, cold in nature when raw, and warm in nature when ripe. Raw food clears heat and purges fire, relieves heat and relieves troubles; cooked food nourishes blood and nourishes the liver, moistens the spleen and kidneys, can remove evil heat, relieve fatigue, clear the heart and improve eyesight, and replenish qi and strengthen yang. But when eating bitter melon, you should also be careful not to damage the spleen and lungs. Although the weather is hot in summer, people should not eat too much bitter food, and it is best to pair it with spicy food (such as chili, pepper, onion, garlic), which can avoid the bitter taste entering the heart and help replenish lung qi.

People's Health Network-Three things to note when eating bitter melon

Baidu Encyclopedia-Bitter Melon