Gourd - Snake

The edible green fruit derives its name of snake gourd, due to its characteristic coiled appearance with light white stripes. Snake gourd plant is a vine that has threadlike stems called tendrils. The leaves are shaped like the palm of a hand with branches called leaflets. The immature fruit is green and elongated, with a soft, fleshy texture 

Use: It is commonly considered a vegetable, which is used in cooking a variety of staple Indian dishes such as kootu, curry, sabzi and dal. The therapeutic and remedial traits offered by the vegetable, as well as snake gourd seeds and leaves are extensive. Moreover, the roots and juice of snake gourd also have applications in skin and hair care.

Benefits:

• The goodness of this green coloured vegetable has been well-regarded for its significant medicinal value since ancient times and is widely documented in Ayurvedic texts.
• Snake gourd supplies plenty of nutrition, being inherently high on water content vegetable, it provides a cooling effect on the body, having zero cholesterol thereby augmenting heart health and abounding in a plethora of vitamins and minerals to facilitate key metabolic functions in the body. 
• antioxidant and anti-inflammatory qualities, due to the presence of beneficial plant compounds like flavonoids and carotenoids.