By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
Sensing a bitter taste is one mechanism of our body to detect potential poisons. But thanks to our ancestors, they have identified bitter plants that are edible and that are important to our health. Bitter is one of the five tastes that we need to eat to have a balanced diet. The other tastes are sour, salty, sweet, pungent. You see, it’s not healthy to be eating sweet-tasting food all the time.
When we say bitter vegetables, the first thing that comes to our mind is ampalaya or parya or bitter gourd or bitter melon. Relax, it’s not only ampalaya that is considered bitter. Vegetables from the cruciferous family are also categorized as bitter. Examples of cruciferous vegetables are broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, born-again vegetable (saringit), Brussels sprouts, kale, radish, watercress, Chinese cabbage or wombok, pechay. Green leafy veggies are also considered bitter like camote leaves, amti, malunggay leaves, etc. By the way, did you know that cruciferous vegetables are called such because their 4-petaled flower resemble a cross?
Other bitter vegetables are the eggplant or aubergine and the bitter eggplant or bitter tomato or what we call “papait” or “talong-kamatis-parya”. This bitter eggplant is interesting because it’s leaves look like an eggplant but its fruit looks like a tomato (it’s green when young and turns red-orange as it matures) and tastes like ampalaya. It’s also called “likok” in India.
Some plant chemical compounds like glucosinolates in cruciferous vegetables make these vegetables bitter and at the same time are responsible for their health benefits. Researches have shown that bitter vegetables may help prevent cancer, slow down growth of cancer, support liver and eye health, prevent heart disease and diabetes. Actually this article was inspired by a post from a friend in facebook that “dail” has promoted the healing of a cancerous growth in his skin. “Da-il” is a very bitter and very popular traditional medicine for stomach trouble and other ailments. Ampalaya is another popular bitter vegetable as it is known to lower blood sugar levels. It has been shown also in some studies to lower blood cholesterol levels. Bitter vegetables also support digestion and help absorb food. Well, indigenous peoples like us Igorots know that medicine tastes bitter so we readily eat bitter vegetables to prevent disease or to heal. I have also heard from somebody that when one has poor appetite, eat ampalaya and your appetite will be restored. True enough, my readings say that if eaten before meals, bitter foods can stimulate appetite. And personally, I have experimented with this and it did restore my appetite.
These medicinal properties of bitter vegetables are also explained by traditional Eastern medicine on another level and which corroborates what western science has discovered. In traditional eastern medicine, when the heart energy is weak, you crave for a bitter taste. As mentioned earlier, leafy vegetables are categorized to have a bitter taste and these are usually heart-shaped. In the natural order of things, the shape of the vegetable gives a clue on what body organ it supports. Thus leafy vegetables support heart health and if they support heart health then they help prevent and heal heart disease. Logical, isn’t it?
As for the “likok” and ampalaya, these are fruit vegetables. Fruit vegetables support the stomach, spleen and pancreas. The pancreas secrete insulin which controls blood sugar. Thus we can understand why these bitter fruit veggies help control blood sugar and cholesterol levels and also promote gut health (health of our digestive system). Gut health is very important to our overall health because it determines if the food that we eat is digested and absorbed well and that toxins are eliminated. It determines to a large extent the quality of our blood which in turns determines our overall health. Amazing, isn’t it!
In brief, we need to eat bitter foods, if not every meal, then most of the time. Remember, leafy vegetables are considered bitter. If we ask our elders, such was our traditional diet- green leafy vegetables are abundant in nature, meaning organic and many just grow wild.****
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“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21
