How Does This Ayurvedic Food Improve Wellness?

CLINICAL AYURVEDIC REVIEW

Refreshing & Cold

As a refrigerant, it is a foremost remedy for Pitta. Simply drop the sweet green flesh into a blender and drink for fast cooling action. Honey dew soothes burning sensations in the gut, and relieves all Pitta irritability. It is an excellent remedy for the emotional heat of summer. Heat creates irritability and anger, due to high Pitta in the liver. Honey dew cools down a hot blooded temper. One client writes, "The pitta tension that I've been experiencing emotionally is soothed when I eat honeydew. In fact I've been longing for it in the heat of the day. I just feel nice and cool when I eat it." Another writes, "My whole body felt cool and refreshed."

Sweet, Hydrating, Satisfying

Honeydew has a high water content, approximately 90%. As a high volume food with lots of water, it offers stomach satisfaction with very few calories. Studies show that high volume, low calorie foods are useful for weight loss. Honeydew is a healthy way to satisfy sweet cravings. Further, studies show that regularly incorporating high-volume, low-calorie foods into your diet can help you lose extra pounds and maintain a healthy weight. It's cold, refrigerant nature makes it an excellent appetite suppressant.

Honey dew is light & easy to digest. It bulks up and slightly softens stool for easy elimination.

Cooling, Soothing Diuretic

As with most melon family foods, honeydew is a diuretic. It's cool nature, high potassium together, and high water content make it an excellent diuretic for flushing and cleansing the kidney, bladder, and urinary tract.

Improves Vision & Relaxes the Eyes

Honeydew is an excellent source of vitamin C and A. It's cold nature, pitta pacifying properties and high vitamin A make honey an excellent tonic for the eyes. When the summer heat smoulders and your eyes become inflamed or blurry, consider honey dew to relax the eyes, reduce inflammation, and restore crisp vision. One client remarked, "My eyes tend to get a little red overnight. After eating honeydew, I did not feel like I had to use eye drops." Another says, "My vision has been strained. With honeydew, it improved."

Contraindications

Like all gourds, the skin of honeydew contains a latex which some are allergic too. For clients that are sensitive to latex, eating honey dew creates a pungent sensation in your mouth. It's cold nature may suppress appetite in Kapha or vata individuals. Although honey dew is easy to digest, as a fruit it may cause gas and bloating, or increase diarrhea.

About Honey Dew

Honeydew, when fresh and ripe, is a succulent treasure. Floral accents perfume its lush green flesh. It's juicy sweetness seems to capture all the wholesome abundance of a teeming garden into a delightful green bowling ball. As a melon, honey dew is related to cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, watermelon and other members of the vine-growing Cucurbitaceae or Gourd family. Underripe, honey dew is crispy and bland. Overripe, it is soft and sweet.

Buying & Preparation

The honeydew should have a completely white, yellow or cream colored skin. The presence of a little brown freckling is a plus that indicates enhanced sweetness. Avoid honeydew with any hint of green skin, as these are underripe. The skin should be slightly soft and springy on the blossom end, giving a little to mild pressure. A mature melon may have a slight wrinkling to the skin that can be felt by touch. If the skin is tacky, it is likely to be sweeter. Feel the skin for slight, nearly undetectable wrinkling that can only be discerned by touch. Though you won't be able to see it, a perfectly mature melon may feature this mild corrugation. If the skin feels slightly tacky, this melon might be a keeper. A deliciously ripe honeydew may develop stickiness on the rind as its sweetness continues to mellow and deepen.

The honeydew should have a symmetrical slightly ovate shape, with the weight of a bowling bowl. A honeydew of 5-6 pounds is optimal. It should feel heavy for its size. Avoid honeydews that feel light for their size, these are less likely to be juicy.

Sniff the blossom end of the honeydew melon, which should smell fresh and clean. Honeydew melons continue to ripen after picking. Let it sit on the counter for a few days before eating.