Rhubarb (genus Rheum ) is a plant belonging to the Poligoniaceae family. Very used as a food, it is digestive, hepatoprotective, purgative, depurative, aperitif and decongested. Let's find out better.
Properties of rhubarb
The relationship between the human being and the rhubarb plant (especially its rhizome) dates back to ancient times. Rehum palmatum (Chinese rhubarb) appears to originate from the Tibetan plateau, where it was the first to be domesticated and cultivated, until, over time, it acclimated to almost all of Asia and all of Europe.
All plants of the genus Rehum have medicinal properties although in Chinese rhubarb they concentrate more.
Reina, the typical active ingredient of the plant, together with tannins, dietary fiber of good quality, other anthraxonic glycosides, chrysophane acid and chrysophanol, together with pectins, folic and gallic acids, give the plant its digestive properties, hepatoprotective, purgative, purifying, aperitif, and decongested.
Parietin, a typical rhubarb pigment, appears to be able to fight leukemia cells .
Method of use
Interior : at the food level the young apical and basal leaves, harvested in the prehistoric period, are consumed (moderately) as a green leafy vegetable.
The rhizome of one year is peeled and dried, after which it is reduced to powder or to smaller pieces with which to prepare infusions or extracts. In herbal medicine it is used as a natural remedy for constipation and is associated with other herbs in the form of single-dose tablets to facilitate evacuation.
The use as an aperitif is proposed in the form of liqueurs and alcoholic beverages in which its active ingredients are extracted and used. Furthermore, these extractions are also effective in helping digestion, purifying and relieving the organism.
External : the use of 10% mother tinctures are used for healing wraps, to soothe anal fissures and hemorrhoids, and finally to prevent infections.
Contraindications of rhubarb
Due to the marked laxative and purgative properties, rhubarb can stress more than is the intestine of people with problems in the excretory system.
For the same reasons, it is not advisable for pregnant women and small children . Furthermore, its consumption should remain limited due to the large amount of oxalic acid it contains (especially in the leaves), which can corrode the mucous membranes.
Discover the use of rhubarb in laxative herbal teas
Description of the plant
Rhubarb belongs to the poligoniaceae family and is generally a very large plant that can exceed two meters in height.
It has a basal rosette with large palmate-lobate leaves that reach up to 80 centimeters and have an entire or serrated edge. From the base of the leaves come out of the long reddish stems to the apex of which hangs a bisexual flower, with a radial shape similar to a panicle and of a color varying from white to pink, from yellow to green, depending on the rhubarb variety.
Its root is very large with a fleshy and robust rhizome which is used precisely for drug extraction.
From the rhizome every year to the vegetative restart the leaves of the basal rosette are born while the rhizome harvest takes place in autumn starting from the second year of vegetation.
Rhubarb habitat
All species of the genus Rehum have adapted very well to temperate Eurasian climates, so much that they grow spontaneously even without the need for cultivation.
He loves open fields near the woods, where he finds the necessary humidity, direct sunlight, the essential organic substance, and a pH suitable for his growth.
Background
The Mongolian and Aryan peoples used the rhizome of the rebarbaro already 1000 years before Christ and over the centuries the European peoples used to import from China (through the Arab and Turkish merchants) the dried rhizome rhubarb (barbarian root) chips.
The etymology of the name has a curious double meaning in Greek: Rha means both plant and Volga, the name of the river around which the first rhubarb crops were born in Europe.
