April 18, 2024

Athens News

News in English from Greece

How nutritious is melon

Summer has come, and the first gourds and melons appeared on the shelves of supermarkets and street markets.

Their aroma is like nothing else reminiscent of the sun and heat. Melon is one of the most popular fruits* of the season. And no matter how overshadowed by watermelon, melon culture has its own fanatical fans who enjoy its many benefits.

What is a melon? Fruit, vegetable, berry? So, for example, we are used to saying “fruit” about all sweet fruits, and “vegetable” about any unsweetened part of the plant. That is, given that the melon is sweet and is usually used as a dessert, from a culinary point of view, it is a fruit. Although in biology and botany everything is different. A vegetable is the leafy part of a plant (such as spinach), the root (such as carrots), the stems (such as ginger), or the flower buds (such as cauliflower). According to the encyclopedia, a vegetable is also called a fruit, meaning those parts of a plant that form from a flower and serve as a repository for seeds. Dry fruits include: leaflet, bean, pod, box, nut, caryopsis. To juicy: berry, apple, pumpkin, drupe. Extending this definition, a vegetable is the succulent part of herbaceous plants that are eaten, such as shoots, roots, tubers, rhizomes, inflorescences, leaves, heads, bulbs. Since the fruit of the pumpkin melon, from the point of view of botany, it is a vegetable.

However, no matter how the melon is called, it is simply tasty and healthy. The fruit is rich in vitamins and “poor” in calories, while it goes well with yogurt and salad, and its pieces are also added to smoothies, writes patrasevents.gr.

If you consume 1 cup (about 20 chopped melon cubes) you will get:

  • about 60 calories, 11% of the recommended daily intake of potassium,
  • 1.4 grams of fiber
  • 51% Vitamin C you should be taking daily
  • the required amount of iron, magnesium, vitamin B6, calcium, vitamin A.

The water content of the melon reaches 85%, and due to the content of vitamin C, the fruit plays an important role in strengthening our immune system and preventing diseases. In addition, gourds contribute to the regulation of blood pressure, due to the large amount of potassium contained in it.

The fruit also plays a role in providing energy to the body, thanks to its natural sugars, as well as vitamin B-6 and folic acid. Melon has anti-aging and anti-cancer properties, thanks to antioxidants – carotene and vitamin C, which makes it also very beneficial for vision.

When you buy your next melon, choose the most fragrant one and feel it well, avoiding the one with soft spots or cracks. Also make sure that the skin is thick, without marks.



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