What are the good pickles for digestion during Tet?

On the Tet tray, besides the plates of meat, ham, and spring rolls, there should be a plate of pickled onions, pickled vegetables, etc. Just thinking about the sour, crunchy taste of the pickled vegetables is enough to make us want to eat deliciously.

Physician Hoang Duy Tan, former Vice President of Dong Nai Oriental Medicine Association, said that when talking about Tet, people immediately think of "Fatty meat, pickled onions, and red parallel sentences", in which pickled onions play a very important role in balancing health during Tet.

According to Vietnamese tradition, no matter how poor, Tet must be filled with food and drink to make up for a year of hard work. Also from this mentality, most Tet days have meat, fatty foods...

As a result, instead of being able to enjoy the Tet holidays, these days become a burden on people's "stomachs".

However, if you know how to arrange and choose food properly, the Tet holidays will be a happy "start" of the new year and will accumulate a lot of energy to move forward into the new year.

One of those "treasures" is pickled onions, pickles... indispensable dishes in the first days of spring.

Pickled onions clean up atherosclerotic plaques in blood vessels

Pickled onions are onions that have been pickled through simple biochemical processes with the right concentration of salt and acidity for the onions to ferment in water. Pickled onions are usually Vietnamese onions, medium sized bulbs. Pickled onions are a traditional dish that stimulates good digestion.

According to traditional medicine, onions are effective in treating colds and bloating, and help strengthen the function of the stomach and spleen.

Modern medicine has proven that onions can help destroy more than 100 types of harmful bacteria in the body, effectively preventing flu, intestinal diseases and some other diseases.

Pickled onions served with banh chung and gio cha is a very interactive combination. Banh chung is soft, fatty, and easy to get bored of, but with a plate of crispy pickled onions, the diners can eat more and enjoy it more.

At the same time, sulfur compounds in onions help the body increase good cholesterol (HDL cholesterol) as well as contribute to "cleaning up" plaque buildup in blood vessel walls, limiting cardiovascular disease.

Pickled mustard greens are good for obese and diabetic people.

This is a type of pickle made from green mustard greens (green cabbage). Remove the rotten parts of the mustard greens, wash them, and dry them. Blanch them in boiling water, arrange them lightly in a jar, and cover with a grill. Dissolve salt in hot water, filter, let cool, pour into the jar with the mustard greens, and cover tightly. After a few days, when the mustard greens turn yellow, they are ready. That is pickle.

During the pickling process, the nutrient content changes slightly, only vitamins B and C decrease by about 10%, most of the glucid in vegetables is converted into lactic acid.

Analyzing 100g of pickled green mustard, people found that the water content is 85.6g; 1.7g of protein; 2.3g of lactic acid; 2.3g of fiber; 3.4g of ash. The heat generating capacity is 16 calories/100g.

Lactic acid and lactic yeast in pickles acidify the intestinal environment, inhibiting putrefactive fermentation that is harmful to intestinal bacteria, so eating pickle brine on the right day is very beneficial, if the pickles are pickled under hygienic conditions.

You should drink pickle juice after taking antibiotics to regenerate beneficial bacteria in the intestines.

Although pickled mustard greens are not a pure medicine, they are very good for Tet dishes because they are low in carbohydrates and have low heat-generating properties. Pickled mustard greens are especially suitable for obese and diabetic people.

Besides green mustard, there are many other vegetables that are also pickled such as cabbage, mustard greens, eggplant, cantaloupe, cucumber...

Below are the chemical compositions of some pickled vegetables:

Lotus root melon reduces fat and provides fiber

Pick the young part of lotus root bought at the market, wash, drain, cut into bite-sized pieces. Soak the lotus root in lemon juice mixed with cold water (1kg lotus root is about 1/2kg fresh lemon), along with refined flour for about half an hour.

Take out, rinse with cold water several times, drain. Boil vinegar, sugar, salt (1 liter vinegar + 1/2 sugar, 3 tablespoons of salt foam) until boiling and let cool. Put lotus root in a jar, pour in the cooled vinegar and sugar water, and it can be used the next day.

The reason why pickles are delicious and stimulate digestion is because during the pickling process, salt and sugar (sometimes vinegar or rice water) contribute to creating pickle enzymes. After a while, these enzymes act on the vegetables, giving them a characteristic taste - sour.

This yeast when entering the stomach also stimulates the stomach to secrete more gastric juice, helping the food processing process to take place quickly, so the body can easily absorb nutrients. Lotus root pickle is not fattening but also provides a lot of fiber for the body.

Cucumber cools the body

Pickled cucumber is an indispensable dish during Tet, used to eat with braised meat or rolled in rice paper. Braised meat provides a lot of protein, energy that makes the body hot. Fat is difficult to digest.

Rice paper also helps meat increase energy, combined with hot weather outside will make the body feel hot.

Pickled bean sprouts are made from mung bean sprouts, which are naturally high in water, and mung beans are cooling, so pickled bean sprouts will help cool the body. The acid in pickled bean sprouts will help digest food and stagnant fat. This is a very smart experience passed down from the ancients.

Water spinach pickle

Buy water spinach (choose Vietnamese water spinach, to make the pickle crispy and delicious) pick the young part, remove the leaves, cut the stems into pieces and soak in cold water + vinegar + a little alum.

Blanch the water spinach in boiling water with salt + alum + a little ash, then soak it immediately in cold water + a little alum. On average, 1kg of water spinach needs 400g of white sugar and a little alum...

Sugar and alum are dissolved in vinegar water. Boil the mixture of vinegar, sugar and salt. Pour the vinegar and sugar water into the jar while it is still hot.

Use chopsticks to submerge the water spinach deep in vinegar, it will be ready to use the next day. You can add garlic, ginger, or sliced ​​chili for fragrance and beauty.

In addition to aiding digestion, water spinach is also effective in preventing and treating chronic diseases. The nutrients in water spinach are also beneficial for anti-aging skin, strengthening hair, preventing cancer, treating stomach ulcers, menstrual cramps, toothaches, urinary tract infections, nosebleeds, etc.