Pomegranate (Punica Granatum)

Flowers:
The red color of Pomegranate (Punica Granatum) made poets assimilate the fruit to the smile of a beautiful, young woman. The fire red suggests desire and dreaming, floating on the wings of a great unforgettable happiness.

Leaves:
Like a rose, the Pomegranate has a pointy leaves and sharp thorns. This is to show that every beautiful things have their own protection, some roughness and, sometimes, even pain. The leaves of the pomegranate are glossy and resilient. Both the fruit and the leaves are protected by unmerciful thorns.

Stem:
The tree is to be found around the Mediterranean Sea. It has been brought here from Persia and Mesopotamia. The Pomegranate tree proves to be quite a traveler, since it comes from even more afar, from India. The tree grows to a height of around 10-14feet/3-4m. This makes it a target for both humans and animals, since all seem to like the fruit it provides.

Fruit:
The Pomegranate is an impressive fruit. If you peel the fruit, you will find inside a pyramid of juice and seeds, with a pink-red color.

Medical Products:
Medical products may be obtained by using the buds, the bark of the roots, the fruits and the seeds. Actually, the most important from a medical use point of view is the bark, the peel of the roots. Yet, someone should be very careful with medical products using it, since it is quite toxic, if mishandled. The fruits are not only tasteful, but they can be eaten for the medical purposes either. The seeds may be pounded in order to be used.
The pomegranate is used in the preparation of infusions, decoctions and powders.
The pomegranate and all medical products based on it help calming the stomach and the entire digestive track, acting like a bandage. More, because of the high content of vitamin C, the pomegranate is indicated to be used in cases of asthenia, exhaustion, depressions and overall physical and mental lows. These fruits are a very good tonic and they really give make you enjoy life again.
The infusion and the bud decoction neutralize the intestinal parasites and they really help preventing dysentery. Moreover, the products obtained from the root bark help decreasing the fever, stopping hemorrhages and helping the wounds to heal a lot faster.

Usual dishes:
You can, of course, eat the pomegranate as it is, because it is a very tasteful fruit. You can, yet, use it to make compote, syrup, sherbet. The Oriental cuisine uses the pomegranate fruit in a lot of dishes. This helps those that eat the dishes feel better and keeping a better internal hygiene. This is why the Pomegranate juice is so often found in the Far East and, since not too long ago, in the Western kitchens as well.

Contraindications:
The pomegranate does not have a toxic effect on the human body. It is a very common fruit, with the exception that is has a higher concentration of vitamin C. Still, the products prepared from the bark of the stem and of the root may be poisonous, acting like nicotine on your body.

Who can use it:
Millenniums of use allowed us to say that the fruit is beneficial to any consumer. Still, the medical products are not recommended to those that suffer from any type of nerves condition and to the pregnant women or nursing ones. Of course, do not use these products with children or, even worse, babies.

Active principles:
The list of compounds is rich and long: alkaloids, mineral salts, vitamin C, and tannin. The fruits have in composition vitamin C, tannin, citric acid, pectin and cellulose. This chemical structure makes the fruit very efficient for the daily basis consumption, but without the peel which, by tradition, is used in the process of currying the pelt.

Impulse:
The component that is said to have aphrodisiacs properties is the fruit of the pomegranate. Which specific component in the fruit is responsible for the aphrodisiac properties is not known for certain. Actually, it is all about some internal chemistry, still secret to us, which makes a human being feel a lot better, a lot more in shape, a lot more wanting to find its affective counterpart.