Useful properties of walnut - you can talk about them endlessly! Walnuts have been revered since ancient times, as a symbol of intelligence, since their kernels have a winding surface, reminiscent of the structure of the brain! One of the most important properties is the prevention of aging. Walnuts are called the fruits of health. Why? Because they include the omega-3 fatty acids we need every day. A quarter cup of cores daily will give you 95% omega-3 - it's almost the norm. Its properties are used not only by folk, but also by official medicine.
Where does walnut grow
Walnut (Juglans regia L) belongs to the genus Juglans L, which gave the name to the whole family Juglandaceae - walnut. Of all the species of the genus Juglans, walnut has the most outstanding fruits in terms of quality, unique beneficial, medicinal properties, which is why it has been grown in many countries of the world since ancient times. The genus Juglans has about 17 species, distributed mainly on the American continent, of which 9 grow in the south of Russia: Greek, Manchurian, black, gray, rocky, major, hinji, Siebold, heart-shaped.
The modern range of its natural distribution occupies a vast territory from the Carpathians to the Himalayas. Its huge wild thickets are found in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
In our country, its culture is most widespread in the North Caucasus, where there are favorable climatic and soil conditions for its cultivation. The development of this culture began here several centuries ago, initially on the Black Sea coast of the Krasnodar Territory. It was probably brought here from Greece or the Crimea. Adygs (Circassians) were particularly successful in breeding it. The old Circassian walnut orchards planted near the former auls have survived to our days. There are many long-lived trees, some have been growing for more than 200-300 years, and yield fruit yields of up to 120 kg annually. It was from these gardens that walnut resettlement began in the North Caucasus region.
Now, thanks to the efforts of breeders, gardening enthusiasts, this culture has moved far north. Experience shows that some selected winter-hardy varieties can not only grow, but also bear fruit - gardeners of the Volgograd, Astrakhan, Belgorod, Kursk, Voronezh, more northern - Lipetsk, even Moscow, Ivanovo, Leningrad regions receive a good harvest.
The northern border of the walnut culture reached the territories of Sweden, Norway. However, it must be bred very carefully, taking into account biological characteristics, requirements for growing conditions.
An outstanding Swedish natural scientist Karl Linney called this miracle tree "royal nuts", and the ancient Romans called them "the acorns of Jupiter."
It was imported into Russia under the name of Persian, Royal, and Greek nuts. His people dubbed the "tree of life." This is no coincidence. For the concentration of the elements of health, longevity, universality of use, this unique creation of nature has practically no competitors among plants. This is one of the most valuable plants in the world.
What does a walnut consist of, its composition
Its main wealth is fruits with high nutritional, dietary and medicinal properties. The kernels contain 60-74% of excellent digestible fatty oil, 14-24% of protein, 8-15% of carbohydrates, 1.5-2% of minerals, mainly phosphorus, calcium, nitrogen, potassium, iodine, iron, a large set of free amino acids, of which six (lysine, valine, threonine, leucine, tryptophan, phenylalanine) are irreplaceable, that is, not synthesized by the human body. And also kernels contain tannins, a number of vitamins of groups A, B, C, E, K1, P, F. Their proportion is approximately the same as that of wheat grains. The sum of solids reaches 97% of the total mass of the fetal nucleus. Not without reason, thinking about its benefits, they say that "nothing disappears in the walnut."
The kernel in caloric content exceeds fatty pork 1.6 times, rye bread - 3, low-fat meat - 4.5, fish, potatoes - 8, milk - 11, and the fruits of other fruit crops - about 15 times. For comparison: 1 kg of peeled kernels by nutrition is equal to a kilogram of meat, fish, bread, potato, milk, pears combined. 100 g of walnut kernels contain approximately 652 calories. It has been established that 20 nuts can satisfy a person's daily need for fat. And 400 g of nut kernels provide the daily caloric needs of a person. That is why E. Tsiolkovsky called them "food of the astronauts." The diet of astronauts necessarily includes prunes and walnuts. The menu of the famous traveler Tour Heyerdahl, his crew also included him.
For reference: the minimum scientifically proven by scientists the annual rate of use of walnuts for one person is 2.4 kg, daily - 7-10 g (or 1-2 pieces).
How walnuts help
Walnut has long been famous for its healing medicinal properties. The nutritional science of its fruits is considered a widely universal product. They can be used for all diseases. There is evidence that the combination of nut kernels with wheat bread is a good substitute for meat. Such food is especially necessary for elderly people.
Its fruits are used for poisoning: you need to eat an empty stomach a tablespoon of honey, two nut kernels with fig fruits. They are recommended for weakened people for quick recovery, with urolithiasis, as a good laxative, anthelmintic. In diseases of the stomach, a kernel crushed with raisins is used. The low content of carbohydrates makes them useful for patients with diabetes, and the presence of iodine - effective for the prevention of goiter.
Daily use of walnut kernels normalizes the functions of the central gland of internal secretion (pituitary gland), increases sexual potency, improves digestion, and enhances intestinal motility, which makes it possible to use them in the elderly, as well as obese. It is proved that potassium salts, vitamins that contain kernels, strengthen the heart muscle, improve digestion.
Unsaturated fatty acids, which are also rich in the nut kernel, regulate metabolism, lower cholesterol, delay the development of atherosclerosis, are important for the treatment of inflammatory, peptic ulcer diseases of the stomach, intestines, cardiovascular diseases, and some liver diseases. These acids increase the resistance of the body's immune system to carcinogens, x-rays, and contribute to the localization of various tumor formations. A few walnuts (4-5 pcs / day) are enough to protect themselves from the harmful effects of radiation.
In folk medicine of the Caucasus, peanut butter has long been used to heal wounds, old ulcers, eye diseases, burns, frostbite, and treat inflammation of the middle ear and nasal mucous membranes. Famous phytotherapist professor F.I. Mamchur, who wrote the book “Fruits and Vegetables in Our Nutrition,” cites a wide range of folk recipes made using walnuts used to treat a variety of diseases. The use of 100 g of walnut kernels with honey and a half months has a beneficial effect on patients with arterial hypertension, it is indicated for those who have increased fragility of blood vessels. Patients suffering from high or low acidity of gastric juice are advised to eat 50-60 g of nuclei for two to three weeks, after which the functions of gastric secretion are normalized.
To improve the activity of the intestine, improve its peristalsis, it is good to use nut milk. It is especially useful for children. Prepare it as follows:
Walnut milk - chopped walnut kernels (10 g) with a mortar, pour a glass of milk, boil. Strain the broth, sugar (10 g), drink semi-cooled as needed.
The benefits of walnut leaves, bark, green fruits
The walnut is useful not only for the fruit. Folk medicine also use leaves, bark, branches. The shell (pericarp) of the fetus also finds use. The healing benefits of green leaves, fruit shells are associated with a high content of ascorbic acid (vitamin C), as well as vitamins B, carotene (provitamin A), tannin, inositol, essential oils, flavonoids, alkaloid yuglon, pectin, etc.
Green fruits, pericarp, leaves accumulate a record amount of vitamin C - up to 3-5 thousand mg%. This is 3-5 times more than rose hips, sea buckthorn. 8-13 times more than blackcurrant berries. 50-100 times more than lemons, oranges, tangerines.
It is known that vitamin C regulates redox processes, has an anti-sclerotic, anti-cancer effect, and lowers total cholesterol. It has been established that an organism receiving enough vitamin C is better able to withstand various infections, other adverse environmental factors, and is more resistant to toxic substances.
Green fruits are also rich in vitamins P, E, which are especially necessary for pregnant women. The high content of vitamins C and P, which strengthen the walls of capillary vessels, reduce their fragility, and also lower blood pressure, make it an excellent tool for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. In addition, green fruits contain a lot of iodine. Therefore, they are used by traditional medicine to treat certain thyroid diseases.
Using these advantages of green fruits, highly nutritious ones are cooked from them, medicinal preserves, marinades are made, and healing nut honey is prepared. To do this, the juice obtained from green fruits is mixed with sugar syrup, given to bees, which are all processed for vitamin honey.
For the treatment of various diseases successfully use green dried fruits, their pericarp (recarp). Green fruits can be used for hypo - and vitamin deficiency.
The juice of the cut green fruit can remove the body hairline. Why lubricate those parts of the body that you want to free from hair two or three times.
Green Walnut Jam
Jam from green fruits is rightly considered the "king of jam." The simplest, most affordable way to prepare it was proposed by T.E. Arrow.
To do this, prepare sugar syrup from natural berry or fruit juices. It is advisable to add to them infusions of flowers, leaves or fruits of medicinal, or spicy-aromatic plants. In the absence of homemade fruit and berry syrups you can buy.
Below are several recipes for making the most common nut jam syrups for 1 kg of peeled kernels:
- berry syrups: -
- 200 ml of strawberry juice with pulp, 50 ml of lemon juice, 1.5 kg of sugar;
- 250 ml of black or red currant juice with pulp, respectively 1.5 or 2 kg of sugar, clove;
- 200 ml of raspberry juice with pulp, 50 ml of lemon juice, 1.5 kg of sugar;
- fruit syrups
- 250 ml of cherry juice, 1.6 kg of sugar, 5 leaves of black currant, 3 leaves of cherry;
- 250 ml of green plum juice with pulp, 1.7 kg of sugar, 5 pcs. cloves, cloves, cinnamon;
- 150 ml of cherry plum juice with pulp, 100 ml of tincture of mint leaves, 1.7 kg of sugar, a little cinnamon;
- 250 ml of juice of sour apples with pulp, 50 ml of strong tincture of tarragon leaves, 2 kg of sugar.
Pre-harvested berry or fruit juice is poured into an enamel pan, sugar is gradually added to it, other ingredients are stirred until completely dissolved, the syrup is brought to a boil, filtered.
Green fruits collected in the phase of milk maturity (their cover is soft and the core is jelly-like), thoroughly washed with running water, dried, cleaned of green skin. The peel is not thrown away, and also used to make vodka or alcohol tinctures, or simply dried to make nut-fruit drinks. In the south, this phase of maturity usually occurs in the middle - end of June.
Each peeled fruit is immediately poured with freshly boiled, but removed from the fire, fruit-sugar syrup. This operation significantly prevents oxidative processes, reduces the darkening of the fruit. Then the syrup is drained, heated again to a boil, poured all the fruits, boiled over low heat for 3-5 minutes. After which they insist 12 hours.
During this time, part of the juice goes into syrup, and sugar penetrates the fruits, which from this become smaller, denser. Then the fruits are boiled again for 5 minutes, left for a day. The third time the jam is boiled for 10 minutes, poured in boiling jars into pre-sterilized jars, they are sealed with a lid.
Green walnut tincture
Widespread use of traditional medicine uses alcohol or vodka extracts from unripe fruits. They are prepared as follows: 15 finely chopped green fruits are placed in glass jars, filled with 0.5 l of vodka or 45-70-degree alcohol, tightly covered with a lid, kept for two weeks in the sun. Then, filtering the infusion, the liquid is drained, clogged.
They use nut tincture inside, as an antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory drug, to improve digestion, with diseases of the kidneys, urinary organs, dysentery, pain, inflammation of the stomach, intestines, especially with their disorders.
The proportion of a single dose of 5-15 (up to 30) g of alcohol tincture in half a glass of water 3 times a day before meals. But, as always, the medication should be agreed with the attending physician.
Walnut leaves, application
Juice, infusions from leaves, green pericarp are used internally as a vitamin, fortifying agent for exhaustion, vitamin deficiencies, muscle weakness, heart diseases, tuberculosis, inflammation, fungal, mercury poisoning, scrofula, diabetes mellitus (for better absorption of glucose by the body), rickets, as an anthelmintic, as a blood purifier (juice mixed with honey), for various skin diseases, and also as an astringent for diarrhea.
To prepare an aqueous infusion of leaves, 5-10 g (1-2 tablespoons) of dried and crushed plant material is poured with one glass (200 ml) of boiling water (like tea), covered tightly with a lid, insisted at room temperature for two hours - a daily dose. Use infusion in equal parts three to four times daily.
Vitamin tea from the leaves is also used for gastroenteritis, to increase appetite, improve digestion, rinse your mouth with sore throat, stomatitis, and douching with gynecological diseases. Folk medicine recommends a decoction of leaves (250 g + 1 liter of water) for baths, washing patients with rickets, polyarthritis, gout, rheumatism, scrofula, sexually transmitted diseases.
In case of weeping skin diseases (itching, weeping eczema, nettle fever, ulcers), baths from the infusion of walnut leaves (according to Zalmanov) are recommended. Ingredients: pour 400 g of leaves with boiling water, leave for 15 minutes, strain. Take a bath with infusion at a temperature of 38.5 degrees 15 minutes.
Green nut leaves, previously crushed, are applied to wounds, ulcers, boils for their quick healing. An aqueous extract of leaves is used to treat non-neglected forms of tuberculosis of the skin, throat, and tuberculous lymphadenitis. For diseases of the liver, gastrointestinal tract, it is recommended to drink oil infusion on fresh leaves (70 g of crushed green leaves are insisted on 300 g of sunflower oil at a usual temperature of 15-20 days).
Bulgarian doctor Iordanov recommends applying a paste of cooked nut leaves as a compress for eczema, tumors of the cervical glands, hemorrhoids. For the treatment of warts, a combination of walnut leaves with parsley leaves or roots is used.
Nowadays, domestic pharmacologists have isolated a valuable substance - juglone, which is used to treat various skin diseases, and also as a preservative for soft drinks, from the leaves and shell of walnut fruits.
It should be remembered that traditional medicine uses all parts of walnut for medicinal purposes, but mainly leaves that need to be harvested for the future. The best harvesting period is June, when the leaves accumulate the largest amount of biologically active substances. The collected leaves are bundled, dried in air, in the shade or in special dryers at a temperature of 35 degrees. Store them in an unheated room.
What can be cooked from walnuts
From them you can cook high-quality cookies, halva, kozinaki (crushed kernels, drenched in hot honey), nut cream, butter, jam, marshmallow, flour, various oriental sweets.
In Georgia, from time immemorial, a kind of delicacy has been made from mature kernels - nut sausages (churchkhels) containing all the main nutrients and useful elements. In this case, the dried peeled kernels are strung on a string, and then they are poured with condensed grape juice mixed with wheat flour and dried. Such "sausages" are able to persist for a long time.
Salads made from kernels are very nutritious, tasty. If you chop them, add finely grated feta cheese, boiled beets, season with mayonnaise or sour cream, you get an original salad.
In France, a paste is prepared from nuts with garlic, which combines the high nutritional + phytoncide advantages of the two plants.
Walnut Pate
The crushed kernels, crushed with salt, garlic are mixed with butter.
A paste is smeared with bread, getting a peculiar fitontsidny sandwich.
I like meat and vegetable dishes seasoned with peanut sauce. Cooking it is not difficult.
Peanut sauce. Grind the peeled nucleoli with a coffee grinder, add a few cloves of finely grated garlic, sprinkle with ground red pepper, chopped green onions, parsley - mix, pour with 6% vinegar. Stir again.
Even a small amount of such nutty sauce adds a wonderful taste to any dish.
What is useful walnut oil
From walnuts, a very valuable therapeutic dietary vegetable nut oil is extracted (the quality is not inferior to olive), which is widely used by confectioners, doctors. The oil is very rich in unsaturated fatty acids - oleic, linolenic, lenoleic, which have a beneficial effect on the human body. It persists for a long time (up to two years), practically without losing its qualities.
The oilcake obtained from the production of oil is extremely rich in protein. A tahini halva is prepared from it, used for filling confectionery.
Walnut oil is one of the best components in the production of high-quality varieties of soap, quick-drying varnishes, pink, orange, violet oils, natural printing inks. Outstanding painters (Leonardo da Vinci, etc.) painted their famous canvases with paints mixed in hazelnut oil. They are very resistant, quick drying.