Cabbage

Botanically it is called Brassica oleracea. It is a biennial vegetable and foddar plant. It is cultivated near the sea coast of various parts of England, in India and the U.S. This plant grows best in mild to cool climate, tolerate frost and some of them tolerate hard freezing at certain points of growth. Hot weather impairs the growth and quality of them. Edible portion of these plants are low in calorie value.

Head cabbage is by far the most important form. Hard-headed cabbage is a newcrop plant that was developed in northern Europe during the middle ages. Soft headed cabbage such as Savoy type is believed to be of southern European origin of an earlier time. Head cabbage is generally denoted by the simple term cabbage and is a major table vegetable in most countries of the temperate zones. The head cabbage ranges in shape from pointed through globular to flat; from soft to hard in structure; though various shades of green grey, magenta or red, and from less than 1 kg to more than 5 kg in weight.

It is an excellent source of vitamin C, iron and calcium. It is valuable in cases of afternoon headache, listlessness, sighing, brooding, fear, pessimism, heart palpitation, neuralgia, bronchitis, jaundice and trembling.

The use of cabbage juice for treatment of stomach ulcers is one of the latest and most vital advances in the field of juice therapy. The healing agent, vitamin U, was isolated and identified by Dr. Garnett Cheney of the Stanford University of Medicine. The treatment consisted of the addition of a quart of cabbage juice to the daily diet taken 5 times a day in six ounce quantities. Cabbage juice should be taken in raw state and without the addition of salt.

The anti-ulcer factor vitamin U is destroyed by cooking. Therefore in the tests made by Dr. Garnett Cheney with gastric ulcer patients, no other raw food was permitted. This proved that fresh cabbage juice alone, transmitted the healing units of vitamin U. The therapeutic effect of the treatment was shown periodically by X-ray examination.

Dr. Garnett Cheney has opined that one-half pint of raw cabbage juice, properly prepared, contains more organic food value than does two hundred pounds of cooked or canned cabbage.

Dr. Benedict Lust has opined that raw cabbage juice added to carrot juice forms an excellent source of vitamin C as a cleansing medium, particularly where infection of the gums with resultant pyorrhoea is present.

Benefit and uses of Cabbage.

• Two or more cabbage meals per week are associated with a 66 percent reduction in risk of colon cancer in men.
• It is benefit in high blood pressure.
• Cabbage juice is a great homeopathic treatment for this painful condition.
• Another benefit of cabbage is in it's anti –cancer properties and is also said to be able in treating other skin conditions.
• Benefit of cabbage. Drink 25 – 50 ml cabbage juice everyday to treat headache, asthma, bronchitis and other digestion problems.
• Cabbage contain vitamin C, fiber, folacin, potassium and of course no fat or cholesterol, cabbage can add volume with very few calories to our meal at an average of 25 calories per cup.