Culantro

Description

Common Name: Culantro, spiritweed, long coriander
Scientific Name: Eryngium foetidum
Family Name: Apiaceae

Edible Uses:

• Fresh leaves are used as a flavoring in food, e.g. in soups, curries, stews, rice and fish dishes.
• Tender young leaves are eaten raw or cooked, as a vegetable.
• Aromatic herb is used to increase taste in various curries.
• It is also used to add in chutneys, torka etc. for its attractive flavor and taste.
• Leaves can be steamed and served with rice.
• Root is used as a flavoring in soups.
• Seed is used as a flavoring.
• Leaves are used to season meat and other foods in Caribbean, Latin American and Asian cuisines.
• In Latin America, the leaves are often added to salsas, a spicy, tomato-based sauce that is eaten with tortilla chips.)
• Cilantro leaves can be used to prepare a variety salsas, gravies, barbecued foods and even appetizing drinks.
• Fresh leaves can be used in salad.

Medicinal Uses :

• Root decoction is taken as a sudorific, diuretic, febrifuge, abortifacient, stomachic and stimulant.
• Juice or a decoction of the leaves is used as a stimulant, as a laxative and as a remedy for colds and fever.
• Decoction of the whole plant is said to lower blood pressure, to be a potent emmenogogue and abortifacient, and is also used as an aphrodisiac.
• Decoction of the whole plant is used as an anti-malarial and for the treatment of hemorrhages.
• Plant is boiled and the water used for a herbal bath or as a medication for chicken pox and measles.
• The leaves are febrifuge, laxative.
• An infusion is used to treat chills, grippe, fevers, head colds, as a children’s purgative.
• Decoction of the crushed leaves is used as a treatment for children’s leprosy and children’s convulsions.
• An infusion is used to treat hydropsy and stomach pains.
• Leaf shows antimicrobial activity.
• It is reportedly used in traditional medicine for burns, earache, fevers, hypertension, constipation, fits, asthma, stomachache, worms, infertility complications, snake bites and also in malaria.
• Tea prepared from the leaves is used to treat fever, flu, diarrhea, constipation, and vomiting.
• It is also thought to promote menstrual bleeding.
• Plant is used in traditional medicines for fevers and chills, vomiting, diarrhea and in Jamaica for colds and convulsions in children.
• Leaves and roots are boiled and the water drunk for pneumonia, flu, diabetes, constipation, and malaria fever.
• Root can be eaten raw for scorpion stings and in India the root is reportedly used to alleviate stomach pains.
• Leaves themselves can be eaten in the form of chutney as an appetite stimulant.
• Decoction of whole plants used as antimalarial.
• In Mizoram, India, decoction of fruits used in dysentery.
• Leaf juice applied to forehead for fever.
• Ethnic communities in the Kodagu district of Karnatak use the leaf decoction against gastrointestinal disorders and the leaf paste for wound healing.
• It can also help with asthma, it lowers the blood pressure, and it helps with epileptic seizures.
• It has a calming effect and it soothes away the seizures.
• It also soothes away the headaches when you drink its tea.
• Leaves and roots are boiled and the water drunk for treating pneumonia, flu, diabetes, constipation, and malaria fever.
• Crushed leaves are placed in the ear to treat pain, and are used for the local treatment of arthritic processes.
• Plant is useful for female reproductive problems such as infertility, childbirth complications, menstrual pains, ease of delivery, postpartum abdominal pains, and vaginal infections and as an emmenogogue.
• Decoction of the whole plant is used to ease delivery, but is contraindicated for pregnancy because it is reported to provoke uterine contraction in Brazil.

Reference : https://www.healthbenefitstimes.com/culantro