Water chestnuts?

I enjoy water chestnuts or in traditional Chinese: 荸薺. I find water chestnuts to be profound, especially as an ingredient in American Chinese food. Not only do water chestnuts add a nice crunch and absorb the flavor of the sauce. They make every meal they are in a crisp treat.

First I think it is important to understand what the Water Chestnut is.

The Water Chestnut or Eleocharis dulcis is a grass-like sedge native to Asia (China, Japan, India, Philippines, etc.), Australia, tropical Africa, and various islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The water chestnut is not a nut at all, but an aquatic vegetable that grows in marshes, under water, in the mud. The small, rounded corms have a crisp, white flesh and may be eaten raw, slightly boiled, or grilled, and often are pickled or tinned. They are a popular ingredient in Chinese dishes. In China, they are most often eaten raw, sometimes sweetened. They also may be ground into a flour form used for making water chestnut cake, which is common as part of dim sum cuisine.

Not only does the water chestnut have a crisp firm crunchy texture but it has many health qualities. The corms of the water chestnut are rich in carbohydrates (about 90% by dry weight), especially starch (about 60% by dry weight), and are also a good source of dietary fiber, riboflavin, vitamin B6, potassium (350 to 360 mg per ½ cup), copper, and manganese, with a respectable array of smaller amounts of other vitamins and minerals. However, water chestnut has no cholesterol to speak of or vitamin A at all. Fresh raw water chestnuts contain slightly more fat than the canned variety, but it’s the good kind.

The health benefits do not stop there with the Water Chestnut. Drinking water chestnut juice has been touted as a way to alleviate nausea, relieve suffering from jaundice, and detoxify the body from impurities. Making the powder into a paste is still used as a remedy for inflammation and is said to be useful, stirred up in water, as a cough elixir and for easing patients with measles.

Studies have found water chestnuts to contain flavonoid antioxidants like catechins, specifically epicatechins (as do dark chocolate, red wine, and green tea). Early aboriginal medicine men crushed the outsides of the bulb for wound application and healing, which science now knows releases antimicrobial effects. Inside water chestnuts are an antibiotic compound called “puchin” which acts in immune function like penicillin.

Therefor water chestnuts, besides tasting amazing in food or by themselves, have compounds with the potential to fight numerous diseases, making water chestnuts much more than just a crunchy ingredient for chop suey.