Arugula, a product that has won widespread love in American food culture, is gradually gaining popularity in Russia as well. The inhabitants of African countries were the first to start eating this product. The plant also traditionally grows in the countries of Near Asia and the Caucasus.
Arugula owes such popularity to its combination of exquisite taste and a whole range of useful properties. First of all, this plant is famous for its rich vitamin composition: arugula contains a high content of vitamin C and a whole complex of useful essential oils. Regular use of arugula can tidy up the immune system, improve vascular strength and solve problems with seasonal fatigue.
Arugula is recommended as a component in the fight against cancer. Doctors and nutritionists highlight this property as perhaps the main advantage of the plant. Indeed, in addition to its nutritional effect on the body, arugula has strong therapeutic properties.
Doctors recommend including arugula in the daily diet for people with high blood cholesterol and those who are overweight. Like all foods that have a sour taste, the plant allows you to fight body fat, but for this you have to eat arugula in large quantities. Also, the plant helps to normalize the work of the gastrointestinal tract. Arugula is good for people suffering from gastritis and recurrent stomach pain.
However, nutritionists warn that excessive consumption of pure arugula can have the opposite effect and aggravate the onset of gastritis. That is why it is recommended to include arugula in the diet as components of salads, first and second courses. It is best to combine arugula with the traditional ingredients of vegetable salads: tomato, cucumber, bell pepper. During heat treatment, the plant, although it loses some of its natural components, still has a beneficial effect on digestion. At the same time, arugula gives a spicy taste to the cooked dish.
Arugula is also a powerful aphrodisiac that any good housewife should take note of. Not only fresh arugula shoots have a tonic effect, but also dried blanks, which can easily replace traditional greens in first courses.
You can dry the arugula yourself. To do this, it is necessary to rinse the shoots of the plant and, cutting off about 1 cm from the stem, finely chop the leaves. After drying at a low temperature in the oven, let it cool at room temperature, and then pour it into a dense plastic or tin container. For salads, a salty preparation is suitable. To do this, the arugula is chopped coarser, after which it is sprinkled with salt in the proportion of 1 tablespoon of salt per 100 g of plant, and then it is poured into a dense glass dish. So the workpiece can be stored for up to one year.
