Both pumpkin and pumpkin seeds have good benefits and properties in the TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) perspective.
Read on to find out what makes them both a good addition to your diet. Also, the following includes what kind of people should avoid eating them too.
Pumpkin TCM Properties
Pumpkin is neutral in terms of its thermal nature. This means most people can eat it for long term without causing any issues to the body.
Pumpkin benefits the lung, spleen, and stomach organ meridians so this means that the above three organs can benefit from pumpkin too.
Pumpkin is one of the rare foods that has the benefit of strengthening the spleen. A good spleen helps in the absorption of nutrients from foods to our body, so having a strong and healthy spleen is important.
The two strongest properties of pumpkin are:
- Detox: It can help to detox the body. This means it helps to reduce inflammation in the body.
- Relieve water retention: If you have water retention in any parts of your body, eating pumpkin will also help to relieve the water retention too. The excess water will be discharged through urine. So this explains why sometimes when you eat pumpkin porridge or pumpkin soy milk, you can experience frequent urination.
The only caution to note is that people with qi deficiency, try to reduce their intake of pumpkin.
How To Add Pumpkin To Your Diet
There are two ways of adding pumpkin to your diet easily.
First, you can add slices of pumpkin to your rice cooker when you are cooking the rice. Pumpkin is easily cooked when placed in the rice cooker and makes good complimentary food together with your rice in any meal.
Another way is to add pumpkin to your soy milk machine (if you have the habit of making soy milk at home). Pumpkin soy milk can help to ease or prevent arthritis (joint inflammation) too. It is a good drink to make for the elderly to protect their joints.
Pumpkin Seeds TCM Properties
Pumpkin seeds are also neutral in their thermal nature. So this means almost anyone can eat pumpkin seeds without any issues.
Pumpkin seeds benefits the large intestine organ meridian.
Pumpkin seeds have the following two strong properties:
- Eliminate parasites in the body: In the past, pumpkin seeds are used to drive away worms and other parasites that reside in the human body, especially in the large intestine.
- Maintain prostate health: The second property is that these seeds can help to maintain a healthy prostate. It can also help to relieve frequent urination when sleeping.
How To Add Pumpkin Seeds To Your Diet
You can eat pumpkin seeds as a snack or add them to your breakfast cereal. They are very versatile to be added to any meal too.
Where To Buy Pumpkin Seeds
Pumpkin seeds can be bought easily online nowadays. If possible, try to choose those that are organic and are ready-to-eat like this one.