Recipe: Watermelon Juice, Summer Saviour

Watermelon is the perfect summer food – sweet, cooling and luscious.

It has incredible medicinal properties – incredible because it’s perfect for what your body needs in Summer – the exact time that it comes into season!

Read on to find out why watermelon is Nature’s Summer gift to you, and a yummy recipe for refreshing watermelon juice.

Here’s how watermelon is used in Chinese Medicine Food Therapy to perfectly help you adjust to Summer weather:

• It belongs to the “Empty-Sweet” flavour, which supports a gentle detox action as the body can let go of excesses. Watermelon has a diuretic action – stimulating the body to release toxins via urination
• It belongs to the “Cold” thermal property, which means that when it’s used appropriately it can help to treat Heat problems (for example, mouth ulcers or Heat-related constipation)
• It nourishes the body fluids, helping you to feel deeply hydrated
• It calms the Spirit, helping you to “keep your cool” on a hot Summer’s day!

Western nutrition recognises that watermelon is rich in antioxidants (vitamins A and C) and carotenoids (lycopene). It also has naturally-occurring electrolytes, which is why you feel so refreshed and hydrated when you have it.

(Use watermelon (and all raw foods) sparingly if you have weak “digestive fire” – bloating, wind, loose stools etc. Chinese medicine can help you to strengthen digestion.)

Some other ways watermelon is used in Chinese medicine:

• As a juice to treat “Summer flu“, also known as “Summerheat Dampness”
• Dried and ground watermelon seeds can be simmered to create a tea that strengthens the Kidneys in Chinese medicine, while promoting urination and lowering blood pressure
• The rind and white part of the watermelon can be simmered into a tea to help relieve urinary tract infections
• “Watermelon Frost” is a prepared medicine used to treat Heat problems such as mouth ulcers and tonsillitis and treats the discomfort of thrush. Here are the instructions to make it at home (get your goose feather ready!):

Put a watermelon into a pottery bowl that is slightly larger than it. Cut out a hole around the stalk. Fill with Glauber’s salt. Put back the rind to cover the hole and fix with bamboo sticks. Cover the watermelon with another pottery bowl. Seal the bowls with leather strips and mud. Store in a cool place. After a few days, frost occurs on the surface of the containers. It is the “Watermelon Frost”. Use a goose feather to sweep down the frost to collect them. Put the pottery back to the cool place and wait for the frost to occur again.
(Source: www.newlandmagazine.com.au/vision/article/362)

Refreshing Summer Recipe: Watermelon Juice with Mint

You will need:

1/4 watermelon

Handful of mint leaves

Lime juice (to taste)

How to make:

Cut watermelon into pieces and add with the mint leaves to blender or juicer.

Add lime juice to taste.

For healthiest juice, drink it with all the fibre included. Otherwise you can strain it through a sieve before serving.

Cheers!