The ancient Greeks and Romans knew the beneficial properties of hazelnut, eating it, preparing medicines. Archaeologists have found during the excavation of fossils hazelnut: hazelnut began to gather during the Neolithic. Hazelnut has been one of the staple foods of our ancestors, hazel protects holy, sanctified, to harvest out over the village. We collected only those nuts that crumbled because only these were the most ripe and could be stored for many years. So we take care of household food security. Today, hazelnuts can buy in any supermarket. But are all the buyers know about the healing and beneficial properties of hazelnut?

Hazelnut: valuable plant family birch

Hazelnut - the fruit of a large hazel, birch bush family. At hazel there are other names - Lombard walnut, hazelnut, filbert. In the wild bush growing area covers Asia Minor and South-Eastern Europe, culturally bred in large quantities in Turkey, Italy, France, Germany, Sweden and the United States. Fruit of the hazel - a cylindrical or oblong nut which ripens in mid-September. Ripe nuts have a high nutritional value and contain up to sixty percent fat, up to fifteen percent protein, and taste similar to almonds.

Use hazelnuts as a standalone product and in the food industry. To this end, nuts squeeze fatty oil, bagasse is used as raw material for the production of halvah. Chopped nuts are used in confectionery, baking cakes and biscuits with them prepare chocolate and waffles Waffles: could not be easier Cakes, sweets and baklava.

Benefits of Hazelnut

The nutritive value of hazelnuts can be compared to a few products: it has more protein than meat, and fatty oil found its use in cosmetics because of its use of quick returns youth and smoothness of the skin of the face and body. Thus, in addition to the exquisite taste and beauty benefits, hazel able to regain lost health. More recently, the discovery was made, it has proved that the extract of hazelnut contains valuable substance that can slow the development of cancer.

Hazelnut activates the brain, because it is recommended to regularly eat those engaged in intellectual work. Hazelnut prevents putrefaction in the intestines, improves the immune system, detoxifies the body. Due to these properties it an evening reception handful of nuts is recommended as a last meal before going to bed: the process of digestion night slowed down in the gastrointestinal tract begins the process of fermentation and putrefaction.

The hazelnut but protein and fat, contains high amounts of vitamins B and E, valuable macro- and micronutrients: iron, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, niacin, tsiamin that displays the nut into the category of valuable natural food. In addition, the composition of the nut includes polyunsaturated fatty acids can slow the aging process Internal and external aging: it is necessary to think in advance   by improving the metabolic processes in the body. Low carbohydrate content of hazelnut has made it a favorite of all stroyneyuschih: nut can be eaten even at the most strict diet, without the risk of gaining weight, and the recommended daily intake - no more than ten nuts.

Hazelnut in folk medicine

Traditional medicine uses all parts of the common hazel - bark, leaves, branches, fruits (nuts), hazelnut oil. A decoction of the bark is used in hazelnut bleeding and to strengthen the walls of blood vessels, infusion of leaves of hazel - for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia. Chopped nuts mixed with honey in equal amounts, helps to quickly cope with a cold cough and phlegm from the lungs to withdraw. This is a tasty mixture used for short course of treatment of anemia, because of the high caloric content of hazelnut liver and pancreas get quite appreciable load.

Regular consumption of nuts with honey The benefits of honey: tasty recovery   and dried apricots can prevent and treat many cardiovascular diseases. This delicacy is to be on the table at each "core". Decoction of leaves and whole peeled nuts, edible, help with chronic fatigue, high blood pressure, varicose veins, thrombophlebitis.

Many nutritionists recommend to always have a handful of hazelnuts with dried apricots or raisins for a "snack" at midday. This meal will help maintain health, beauty and mood for the whole day.

Jeanne Pyatirikova

Related Articles

Grilyazh: French sweetness of Oriental origin

Nuts in cooking

Pecans: the fattest nuts