Nutritional Benefit of Bottle Gourd aka Calabash (Lagenaria siceraria) - Labu Air

Bottle gourd or calabash
  

Bottle gourd or calabash is a delicately flavored, cucurbita family vegetable. It is one of the chief culinary vegetables in many tropical and temperate regions around the world.
 Botanically, calabash belongs to the broader cucurbitaceae (gourd) family of vegetables, in the genus: Lagenaria. Scientific name: Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl. Some of common names are white-flower gourd, opo-squash, long squash, etc, in the west and doodhi or lauki in the Indian subcontinent.

Calabash is a fast growing, annual climber (vine) that requires adequate sun light for flowering and fruiting. It can be grown under wide range of soils and require trellis to support its easy spread.
Its intensely branched stems bear musky, deep green, broad leaves just similar as that in pumpkins, and white, monoecious flowers in the summer. After about 75 days from the plantation, young, tender, edible fruits evolve that will be ready for harvesting.

This fruit, come in wide range of shapes and sizes.The fruit features oval, pear shaped or elongated and smooth skin that is light green in color. In case of round or pear shaped calabash, their surface is marked by inconspicuous ridges that run lengthwise. Internally, its flesh is white, spongy and embedded with soft, tiny seeds. As the fruit begin to mature, its seeds gradually develop to bigger size similar to as that in honeydew melons.

 The Common Use of Calabash Around the World

• Fresh calabash is used in variety of stews, curries, sweet recipes across the world. In the Indian subcontinent where it is popularly known as lauuki, used in the preparation of sabzi, sambar, chutney, soup, raitha, etc.
  
• In India and Pakistan, its flesh is used to prepare mouth-watering sweet dish, lauki ki halwa.
  
• In Africa, where it is thought to have taken its origin, calabash is used in stews with meat, poultry,seafood.
  
• In India, bottle gourd juice is a popular drink for its known health benefits.
  

Health benefits of Bottle gourd 

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• Bottle gourd is one of the least calorie vegetable, providing just 14 calories per 100g. It is one of the vegetables recommended by the dieticians in weight-control programs.
  
• Fresh gourds contain small quantities of folates, contain about 6 µg/100g (Provide just 1.5% of RDA). Folate helps reduce the incidence of neural tube defects in the newborns when taken by anticipant mothers during early months of their pregnancy.
  
• Fresh calabash-gourd is a moderate source of vitamin-C (100 g of raw frit provides 10 mg or about 17% of RDA). Vitamin-C, one of the powerful natural antioxidants that helps human body scavenge deleterious free radicals one of the reasons for cancer development.
  
• Calabash facilitates easy digestion and movement of food through the bowel until it is excreted from the body. Thus, it helps in relieving indigestion and constipation problems.
  
• In addition, the vegetable is also a moderate source of thiamin, niacin (vitamin B-3), pantothenic acid (vitamin B-5), pyridoxine (vitamin B-6) and minerals such as calcium, iron, zinc, potassium, manganese and magnesium.

Sourcehttp://www.stuartxchange.com/Upo.html
http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/bottle-gourd.html